Photos: Spring/Break Kicks Off Armory Arts Week With A Long Line & A Kissing Closet

Scott Lynch

Published Mar 2, 2016

Modified Mar 2, 2016

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Photo by Scott Lynch/Gothamist

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Scott Lynch

Published Mar 2, 2016

Modified Mar 2, 2016

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The contemporary art world has descended upon the city once again for Armory Arts Week, and the fun got started yesterday afternoon at the Spring/Break Art Show, which will be open to the public through Sunday afternoon at the Skylight at Moynihan Station.

It's the second year in a row that the curator-driven show has been held in these abandoned offices and hallways above the James A. Farley Post Office near Penn Station, and the no-frills, warrenlike venue has proven to be an excellent one for the often freaky, installation-heavy exhibition.

Spring/Break is now in its fifth iteration, but it hasn't let success and staggering growth—there are nearly 100 curator teams showing their artists' stuff this year—change its provocative, anti-glitz attitude. Nearly every room has something interesting or amusing or surprising or delightful to look at, but a few standouts include:

Talwst Santiago's horrifying "minimized histories," like the Execution of Unarmed Black Men rendered as a tiny diorama in a jewel box.
Alanna Vanacore's Seven Minutes In Heaven closet, in which you're invited to write your best/worst birthday memories on a pink balloon as the artist blasts party music. Her paintings hanging in the hall outside are pretty awesome too.
Alfred Steiner's LV DIY, a boutique of sorts where you can purchase hand-painted, heavily-logo-ed "designer" shirts, bags, sunglasses and jackets for the same price as the manufactured items you'd find at, say, Barneys. So: $600 for a t-shirt; $2,200 for a blazer.
MHOAUNTDH by Esmeralda Kosmatopoulos (the word is a mashup of "mouth" and "hand"), a sculptured series of floating hands in familiar texting positions, emphasizing how much of our communicating these days now is done via our thumbs.
Remy Bennett's recreation of her teenage bedroom, slightly reimagined as if she had been (is still?!) a cam girl cannibal serial killer.

But that is just the very tip of the crazy-art behemoth that Spring/Break has become. You could easily spend three hours wandering these halls, chatting with the artists and curators, immersing yourself in their sometimes quite disturbing imaginations.

Last night's line. (Scott Lynch/Gothamist)

Spring/Break will be held at the Skylight At Moynihan Station, 421 Eighth Avenue near West 31st Street, through Sunday, March 7th. Hours are noon through 8 p.m., except on Sunday when it closes at 6 p.m.. Admission is $10 in advance, $15 at the door.

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armory arts week

art

spring break

spring/break

original