I’m approaching 29, and I still have no shame in bringing weeks’ worth of dirty laundry to my parents’ home when I visit for the weekend. It’s usually worth it when I factor in the cost of an off-peak round-trip ticket for the Long Island Rail Road, but it becomes arduous when the LIRR suspends weekend service in Brooklyn, and I’m left with trudging my hamper backpack to Penn Station as my only option.
“At least I didn’t have to pack a bag,” I sheepishly tell myself while the shaky uptown F jostles me around the train car, causing me to bump into people with that stupid, practically overstuffed thing.
In the back of the Indian clothing store, my mom tells the tailor in Punjabi that I need some previously tightened lehenga blouses let out and the armholes enlarged because my shoulders have broadened in the last few years. While looking at me, he asks her if he should take out the side zippers and just put hook-and-eye fasteners down the backs instead, so that I don’t get stuck with my arms straight in the air as one usually does with this style of garment.
“Even if you do that, she wouldn’t be able to close the blouse from the back on her own,” my mom counters. She’s touching on a larger theme here without knowing.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t relieved about the fact that I’ll be coming home to a ton of clean clothing and a selection of healthy, home-cooked meals in the fridge, though. I’m grateful that both of those are handled as we hurtle toward Armory Week and All That It Entails. Aside from the seasonal overlap of every art fair ever (almost), we’ve also got a major Arthur Jafa exhibition opening at the New Museum, a retrospective of citywide activism via Raise Your Voice at the Museum of the City of New York, Teresa Margolles: En el lugar de los hechos at MoMA PS1, and more.
Beyond that, the performance art festival Art in Odd Places returns to 14th Street this weekend to ask the public to consider what New York City could be rather than what it is, while the upcoming group exhibition 260 Madison reactivates an enormous vacant Duane Reade storefront in Midtown.
Take a glance at our art fair guide and our NYC Fall art guide to help set you up for some worthwhile happenings across the city. I can’t guarantee you’ll get through even a fraction of what this week’s lineup has to offer, nor will I even attempt to do so myself, but I can happily attest to the fact that there’s something out there for everyone, waiting to be appreciated by just the right audience.
Happy Armory Week to those who celebrate, and if you see me running feverishly across the city in some pants that are a bit too short because of the misleading low-heat setting on my parents’ dryer … Do me one act of kindness and pretend like you didn’t.
Your Cheat Sheet to NYC’s Fall Art Fairs
After an exceptionally moody and muggy New York City summer, the first whispers of fall spell a welcome reprieve to some, a dreaded reality check to others, and at long last, the bustling and beloved return of fall art fair season. While corn mazes might be a rare site amid the skyscrapers, there will be plenty of labyrinthine booths to wind your way through, both at the good ol’ classics like the tremendous Armory Show, and newer affairs such as the second edition of SPLIT LEVEL.
To help you navigate, we’ve compiled 10 art fairs that cater to an array of interests, including affordable zines, Surrealist women artists of past and present, and Latinx arts publications. Grab your totes, layer up, and prepare to embrace the annual pageantry. | Anna Lee and Rhea Nayyar
FIT Exhibition Explores the Cultural Dialogue Between Dolls and Fashion
Featuring more than 170 objects, “Doll Dressing” examines the influence of dolls on fashion from the 18th century to today.
Feature
NYC’s Shelter Population Speaks Out in Public Art Project
Alex Strada’s “Public Address” brings handwritten testimonies from over 400 unhoused New Yorkers and shelter staff to a dozen locations across the Bronx. | Anna Lee
Fall Fairs, Fall Shows
Five Shows to See in Tribeca Right Now
Caroll Dunham’s purple people, Mia Goldstein’s packaged art, and ethereal paintings by Giuseppe Francalanza and Christine Safa. | Rebecca Schiffman
A Tiny Hot Dog Art Show and Other Treasures at Affordable Art Fair
Dylan Martinez’s glass-blown water balloons, Deanna Billy Projects’ mini wiener paintings, and Abu Oluwaseyi’s abstract portraits all caught my eye at this year’s NYC edition. | Anna Lee
Member Event: ISCP Ground Floor Studio Visits
Join Hyperallergic on September 30 for an evening of studio visits and conversations with the NYC-based artists selected for the International Studio & Curatorial Program’s Ground Floor Residency.
From Our Critics
Hakim Bishara
Gardens in Orbit at Casey Kaplan
“Like flower petals greeting the light of dawn. Like butterfly wings made of steel mesh. Like a supernova explosion that happened 20,000 years ago but still looks like it’s on day one. Like beads containing seeds strung on cotton threads stretched over a green valley between two mountain peaks.”
News
- Beijing-based artist Liu Wei returns to New York with brand-new works for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Genesis Facade Commission. On view through next June, Liu’s Speculation (2026) reflects on the contradictory elements of collapse and civic transformation.
- ChaShaMa, which provides subsidized studios to artists, is losing half of its space inside the Brooklyn Army Terminal.
- A herd of 40 life-sized buffalo puppets migrated through parts of NYC this weekend for Return of the Buffalo: Tatanka Owe Akupi (Lakota for “buffalo trail home”).
- Billionaire art collector and MoMA board member Leon Black, whose connections to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein are the subject of ongoing investigation, plans to convert Woolworth Mansion into a foundation to display his estimated $5 billion art collection, a new book reveals.
What Else Is Happening?
- In honor of Climate Week NYC, attend a short lecture from Collective Fashion Justice about solutions to create a more responsible fashion future, followed by a screening of SHIRINGA: Fashion Regenerating Amazonia and a panel discussion. (Tues Sept 22) [climateweeknyc.com]
- Join a Queens Artists Listening Session with NYC Department of Cultural Affairs Commissioner Diya Vij! (Wed Sept 23) [NYFA]
- Camille Henrot brings her interdisciplinary practice to the stage for the first time with the New York premiere of Commedia dell’arte. (Wed Sept 23) [lallianceny.org]
- Visit Notes from Daughters, a group art exhibition bringing together 19 national and international women artists to explore the relationship between fathers and daughters. (Wed Sept 23) [Baci Studio]
- During Noches de Cine, spend the night watching new Latino short films at El Museo Del Barrio. (Thurs Sept 24) [elmuseo.org]
- Reactivating a vacant Duane Reade storefront in Midtown Manhattan, 260 Madison assembles sculpture, new media and video work by 50 artists responding directly to the enormous space and its post-retail fixtures and ephemera. (Thurs Sept 24) [260 Madison]
- Watch the film Do You Love Me, a playful and personal journey through Lebanon’s audiovisual memory, composed entirely of archival footage. (Thurs Sept 24) [maisonfrancaise.columbia.edu]
- Celebrate the publication of Jack Halbertam’s new book Anarchitecture After Everything: A Trans Manifesto with a conversation between Halbertam and Benoît Loiseau, author of the new The Death of the Clinic. (Thurs Sept 24) [theworldischange.com]
- Artist and Siekopai Nation leader Yadira Ocoguaje shares her ancestral pottery practice as part of her USA tour for Climate Week. (Fri Sept 25) [Gasworks NYC]
- Art in Odd Places returns to 14th Street this weekend with a theme of Utopias. Through site-specific installations and interactive public performances, AiOP’s artists ask New Yorkers to consider the city’s potential through collective imagination. (Sat Sept 26 to Sun Sept 27) [artinoddplaces.org]
