After a short, eventful summer, an energetic crowd descended on New York’s Javits Center as The Armory Show 2025 opened its VIP preview on Thursday, September 4th. This year’s edition, which runs until September 7th, features more than 230 exhibitors from 35 countries and will once again act as a barometer of the American art market as it heads into a busy fall season.
That barometer will be closely watched after last season in the U.S. market, which raised questions about the broader health of the industry. The mood across the busy fair floor on the fair’s VIP day offered a nuanced picture. While some galleries reported a more measured dealmaking pace for their most expensive offerings, many of those selling works towards lower price points saw strong collector demand, giving credence to a bubbling optimism shared by dealers across the fair. This was notably true in the Presents section of the fair—dedicated to solo or dual artist presentations from emerging galleries—where several exhibitors reported brisk business within the fair’s opening hours. Some galleries in the section, including Megan Mulrooney, had reportedly sold out their booths by the end of the day.
This year’s fair is also the second under the ownership of Frieze—which is also running its Seoul edition in the Korean capital this week—and the first under the full directorship of Kyla McMillan. McMillan noted the importance of having a sizable platform, pointing to the Presents section, where some 48 galleries are exhibiting.
“It’s incredible to see what an opportunity and what a platform the fair can be, and of course, we hope that the fair is a pipeline for them,” she said. Accessibility is a central part of her mission as director. “You should be able to come here whether you’re not even comfortable calling yourself a collector yet or you’re a collector,” she told Artsy.
albertz benda Booth 305
Works by Christopher Le Brun, Brie Ruais, and Tony Marsh
Three vastly different practices find surprising harmony at the booth of New York gallery Albertz Benda, where Christopher Le Brun’s luminous abstractions, Brie Ruais’s explosive ceramics, and Tony Marsh’s meticulously perforated vessels all converge around a shared obsession with material and form.
Ruais’s Loosening With the Wind (East), 130lbs (2025)—a multi-piece, gestural, wall-mounted ceramic—demonstrates the artist’s physical practice. Beginning with clay equal to her body weight, Ruais worked on the floor, choreographing gestures inspired by ecological forces—in this case, the desert winds outside Santa Fe. The resulting glazed fragments ripple outward like weather patterns. In contrast, Marsh’s Perforated Vessel (2025) embodies a rigorously technical approach. He pours molds to ensure uniformity, then perforates each surface with a metal tool before multiple firings and glaze applications. Priced at $13,500, the vessels have lattice-like skins that feel simultaneously fragile and architectural.
Meanwhile, Le Brun’s Colour II (2025) embodies a lyrical quality, layering reds, pinks, and ochres in rhythmic strokes. “You can see these moments of crescendo, especially in a work like Air (2025), there is a certain atmospheric effect, but there’s also something inherently musical about his approach,” said the gallery’s director, Kate Moger. These works are priced between $54,000 and $120,000 apiece.
