Two People in the Water, Xia Xiaowan, Tang Contemporary Art, Beijing
This weekend, the art world's version of March Madness arrives in the form of Armory Arts Week, a four-day orgy of art fairs, some nine in all this year. At the center stands the Armory Show, which bestows its name on the annual invasion of galleries from around the world. The brainchild of four dealers—Colin de Land, Pat Hearn, Matthew Marks and Paul Morris—the event was launched in 1994 as a kind of let's-put-on-a-show affair, where young dealers took up rooms at the Gramercy Park Hotel to present their wares. It's since exploded into one of the largest fairs in the world. More than 160 galleries are participating this year, split between Piers 92 and 94 in sections devoted to contemporary and historical modern art. But while the point is to provide one-stop shopping for collectors, there's tons of art to see. So if you want to find out what's going in art today under one roof, there's no better place. And if you can't make it, you can still check out the highlights in our exclusive tour of the show.
RECOMMENDED: Full coverage of the Armory Show
