American collectors seem to have taken the back-to-school spirit seriously this year, with several dealers reporting a brisk and buoyant first day at the Armory Show. The New York fair—one of the city’s most established and historic—opened yesterday, September 4, at the Javits Center and quickly surpassed expectations across price ranges, leaving dealers cautiously hopeful that this season might mark the start of a healthier moment, at least for the U.S. market.
“People are excited to be ‘back to school’—both dealers and collectors,” New York dealer David Nolan told Observer. By early afternoon, his booth had already sold well to existing clients and some new ones. “Many serious collectors are in from out of town to get in on the fun,” he noted. “Not to be hyperbolic, but things are flying off the wall.” Nolan’s booth was strategically conceived to offer something for everyone—one hundred works on paper spanning 1944 to the present, embracing a range of styles and narratives and, most importantly, different price points.
Reflecting on the market, Nolan added that in his experience, the art world operates in cyclical patterns. “I have seen several waves of change since I opened my gallery, and they are good and necessary.” On the fair floor yesterday, there was no room for gloom and doom—only optimism. “I’m not afraid to be a pessimist, but there’s just no place for it at the moment!”
Some international professionals at the fair were more critical, lamenting that The Armory Show no longer attracts many of the major galleries that once participated. “The Armory is stuck in the middle,” art market expert and thought leader Magnus Resch told Observer. “It has a strong team and a prime venue, but it’s held back by unfortunate timing, the absence of top galleries and direct competition from Frieze Seoul.”
Optimism and early sales nonetheless offered immediate relief—and hope—to younger dealers, particularly those in the fair’s Present section, dedicated to galleries under ten years old and featuring the largest number of participants in Armory’s history. As director Kyla McMillan told Observer in an interview ahead of the fair, for her first edition, she wanted the event not only to appeal to seasoned collectors and institutional players but also to engage a broader, younger audience. The Armory Show is, after all, one of the longest-running fairs in the U.S. and a cornerstone of New York’s cultural scene—and often, for many New Yorkers, the first or only art fair they attend.
One standout this year in the Present section was the alchemical cosmologies translated into glazed ceramic vessels by Mexican artist Alejandro Garcia Contreras, presented by Swivel Gallery in its Armory debut. Following Contreras’s sold-out debut at NADA New York two years ago and a solo exhibition, his new works once again captivated visitors with their mysterious, symbolic, archetypal language, merging mythological visions with pop culture to grapple with the mysteries of the universe. Four vessels and a ceramic mirror sold within the first hours of the fair, priced between $11,000 and $20,000, with an additional $12,000 vessel placed by evening.
The gallery is also presenting in Platform, the section dedicated to large-scale installations, a new work by Jamaican-born artist Simon Benjamin, Tidalectic No. 1, 2025—a 700-pound iteration of his sand-barrel works, transmuting sediment and shoreline into vessels of memory. The piece exposes a geology and maritime history embedded in colonial pasts, engaged in the present and gesturing toward imagined futures.
The solo booth of British abstract artist Jo Dennis, presented by Mexico City- and New York-based gallery JO-HS, also attracted plenty of attention. On opening day, the gallery placed one of Dennis’s sculptures made from used military tent fabrics, where dense layers of intuitive marks and gestures accumulate as a psycho-emotional and poetic record of past memories and new bodily and identitarian awareness. By evening, several of her dynamic paintings were on hold with both existing and new collectors.
Returning to Armory this year, Mrs. Gallery is showing a solo presentation of Molly Bounds’s intimate and psychologically nuanced paintings that place undefined and often archetypal subjects in liminal, contemplative and suspended states that resonate emotionally beyond any individuality. By evening, the gallery had placed at least two works, priced at $7,000 and $4,000, respectively.
Also in Present, DINIM Gallery mounted a solo booth of evocative works by Emily Coan. By evening, the gallery had sold at least five pieces, captivating collectors with their imaginative, magical atmosphere inspired by fairy tales and myths. “There’s a tremendous amount of excitement and buzz,” Robert Dinim told Observer, noting the strong institutional presence with curators from museums across the U.S. and a large number of private collectors and advisors out with multiple clients. For him, the first-day atmosphere suggested the possible beginning of a market shift.
Toronto-based Patel Brown similarly reported a strong first day in the same section, selling six works from their solo presentation of Canadian-Japanese artist Alexa Kumiko Hatanaka, all priced under the $25,000 threshold. Combining tradition and innovation, nature and human creation, Hatanaka works on traditional Japanese washi paper with printmaking and ink, shaping her practice as a way to reattune to the organic rhythms of nature. Her process embraces transformation and the alchemical power of materials to create seemingly abstract compositions that move beyond human-centered perception and expression, while reflecting the fragility of environments and the delicacy of entire ecosystems disrupted by human activity.
Meanwhile, for its inaugural participation in the Armory, Miami-based gallery Andrew Reed featured a solo presentation by Cornelius Tulloch, reporting sales of multiple works in the range of $4,000 to $6,000. Moving within a largely symbolic and allegorical realm, Tulloch explores themes of migration, masquerade and Afro-Indigenous rituals in paintings that evoke both the mystery and vitality of the tropical South Florida and Caribbean landscapes.
Also making its Armory debut, the dynamic Chicago-based Povos Gallery presented a solo booth of Mexican multidisciplinary artist Leopoldo Gout, following his sold-out show at the gallery last year. Gout’s ever-expanding creativity traverses mediums and themes, weaving stories about human nature in relation to the natural world and emphasizing the power of collective imagination. The gallery reported strong interest and promising conversations likely to lead to additional sales in the coming days.
In the Focus section, one of the most anticipated highlights was the solo booth of vibrantly colored ceramics by Miami artist Joel Gaitan, presented by The Pit, which went on to win the $10,000 SAUER Art Prize.
In the main section, Brazilian dealer Nara Roesler returned after a multiyear hiatus and saw positive interest in both the Brazilian artists central to her program and international names. By evening, the gallery had placed a linen-and-wool work by Sheila Hicks for $87,000, a print edition by Vik Muniz for $45,000, and works by Marcelo Silveira ($18,000), Manoela Medeiros ($20,000) and Bruno Dunely ($8,000). “We are happy to be back at the Armory with such a strong group of galleries. The mood is still high,” senior director Patrícia Pericas told Observer. “We have been particularly pleased with the increased interest from advisors requesting works by Brazilian artists for their clients.”
In the main section, Marc Straus featured a group presentation of leading names from his roster, with a clear emphasis on the handmade and on legacies of craftsmanship reimagined through contemporary material approaches. The booth included Jeffrey Gibson’s Like a Hammer—the title piece of his landmark touring museum survey that began in 2014—alongside works by Abdulnasser Gharem, Folkert de Jong, Hermann Nitsch, Ozioma Onuzulike, Anne Samat, Antonio Santín, Renée Stout and Marie Watt. “We had a tremendous first day, with five works sold within the first few hours and both new and returning collectors visiting our booth,” Straus told Observer. “I believe our strong sales came from bringing the very best works by each artist and, as always, keeping our prices fair.” First-day sales for the gallery included oils by Antonio Santín.
A range of abstract works dominated James Fuentes’s booth, including pieces by John McAllister and Pat Lipsky, anticipating their fall exhibitions at the gallery. Fuentes had already sold Lipsky’s Winter Landscape (1971) ahead of the fair for $180,000. The artist’s upcoming show and renewed market attention coincide with the release of her book Brightening Glance: Recollections of a New York Painter (University of Iowa Press).
Among the highest-priced sales on opening day, Galleria Lorcan O’Neill placed works by Tracey Emin, Kiki Smith and Rachel Whiteread in the range of $15,000 to $1,000,000, while Sean Kelly sold a painting by Kehinde Wiley for $265,000.
By day’s end, the other major-ticket work at the fair—a $1.2 million Alex Katz anchoring Peter Blum’s booth—remained available. Nonetheless, Blum reported several other sales, including works by Martha Tuttle and Nicholas Galanin, who continues to enjoy a strong institutional presence this year, both in the U.S. and in biennials and museums worldwide.
James Cohan Gallery placed a sculpture by Kennedy Yanko in the first hours for $150,000. Yanko only recently joined the gallery’s roster, following her solo presentation with Cohan at Frieze London and a nearly sold-out double exhibition staged jointly with Salon 94 last September. The gallery reported a number of first-day placements for other in-demand artists on its roster, including two paintings by Naudline Pierre at $25,000 and $12,000, a painting by Mernet Larsen ($12,000), two sculptures by Tuan Andrew Nguyen at $95,000 each (following his solo booth at Frieze New York in May) and two works by Trenton Doyle Hancock ($85,000 and $40,000). On the textile front, the gallery placed two appliqué works by Christopher Myers ($45,000 and $37,000) and a woven piece by Claudia Alarcón & Silät ($25,000).
Returning to the Armory this year—and participating in both the New York and Seoul fairs this week—White Cube sold several works from its solo presentation dedicated to the Croatian artist duo TARWUK, with paintings ranging from $65,000 to $100,000. Coming of age amid the dissolution of socialist Yugoslavia, the trauma of war and the collapse of familiar social structures, TARWUK’s work carries a bleak, decadent aesthetic that evokes the lost splendor of the region’s golden age while hauntingly resonating with the present—particularly Europe’s fraught role in global geopolitics. The gallery also sold a mixed-media work by Emmi Whitehorse for $150,000, following her first solo with White Cube last September at its Paris space and a surge of interest sparked by her inclusion in the recent Venice Biennale. Additional sales included a painting by Tunji Adeniyi-Jones for $85,000 and a bronze by the always fair-popular Tracey Emin for £60,000, among others.
Also participating in the season’s restart on both sides of the globe—New York and Seoul—was Tang Contemporary, which reported multiple sales, including Ai Weiwei’s sculpture Toilet Paper for $150,000-180,000. Elsewhere, overlooked-talent-scouting gallery Berry Campbell saw strong interest, closing a 1952 painting by Perle Fine on the first day for $125,000, with additional conversations expected to unfold in the coming days.
It was a successful “back to school” for Nicodim as well. “The energy was high, outfits chic and sales brisk,” gallery partner and global director Ben Lee Ritchie Handler told Observer. On the first day, the gallery placed works by Isabelle Albuquerque, Angeles Agrela, Samantha Joy Groff, Rae Klein and Teresa Murta, with promising holds on major pieces by Devin B. Johnson, Agnieszka Nienartowicz and Moffat Takadiwa—all priced between $12,000 and $65,000.
Proving that the under $50,000 price range may be the most dynamic and fast-moving in today’s environment, Uffner & Liu sold several works on the first day in the main section. Sales included a piece by Sheree Hovsepian for $28,000, two paintings by Sarah Martin-Nuss for $22,000 and $15,000 and a cabinet and two paintings by Anne Buckwalter for $11,000, $14,000 and $10,000, respectively. By evening, the gallery had crossed that “sweet” threshold, placing a sculpture by Hovsepian for $75,000. L.A. mainstay Vielmetter reported selling most of the works they brought to the fair—ranging from $8,000 to $50,000—by the end of the first day, while Anat Ebgi moved quickly to place works by some of their most promising young talents, many recently presented in their new Tribeca spaces. Sales included pieces by Marisa Adesman ($35,000), Tammi Campbell ($50,000), two paintings by Sigrid Sandström ($32,000 and $25,000), Janet Werner ($28,000), Jemima Murphy ($23,000), Ileana García Magoda ($22,000) and two glazed stoneware works by Olive Diamond ($7,500 each).
Meanwhile, another New York staple, Lyles & King, sold multiple works by Brazilian artist Fernanda Galvão, including a $36,000 diptych and a painting for $24,000. Drawing from science fiction and biology, literature and cinematography, Galvão reflects on the construction and manipulation of fictional landscapes, proposing alternative universes with new rules, spatial dynamics and temporal logic. Though already widely exhibited in Europe and South America, this well-received presentation marked something of a debut for the artist in the U.S.
Overall, the mood on Armory’s opening day was positive, offering hope for a stronger season ahead for both U.S. and international dealers and for a recovery of the American art market to a “new normal”—though still far from the pace and levels galleries had grown used to. Yet, as dealer and advisor Henry Neuendorf observed, galleries are simply tired of the steady drip of negative news about the state of the market. “We all know sales have been stronger in years past, but the negativity can become a self-fulfilling prophecy,” he commented. “My sense was that dealers and buyers seem cautiously optimistic and ready to turn the page.”
Art advisor Angelica Semmelbauer echoed Neuendorf’s take, noting the fair featured strong presentations from both galleries and artists—even if some leaned toward the safe side. “What felt especially uplifting was seeing sales happening despite all the uncertainty in the art market, which has been a current topic, and the larger world right now that’s weighing on clients,” Semmelbauer said. “I’m still a big believer that artists will keep creating meaningful work and clients will be there to support their practice and acquire the work, to keep the art ecosystem moving forward in a purposeful way!”
Ultimately, it’s a matter of readjusting expectations, refining strategy and adapting to a new rhythm. As yesterday’s Armory opening showed, the important thing is that American collectors—the fair’s core audience this year—are still buying and supporting the ecosystem as this next cycle begins.
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