Shona McAndrew, “Sometime Last Night,” 2019, at the Spring/Break art fair. Paper mache, acrylic. Photo: Regina Bresler
Much like Fashion Week and Fleet Week, we are entering another themed week in the NYC event ecosystem: art fair season. While commonly referred to as Armory Week, over the past 15 years half a dozen fairs have popped up as viable contenders to the main art show, vying for the attention of press and collectors over the course of a dizzying four days of art.
The youngest and buzziest addition to the landscape is Spring/Break, which enters its eighth season at 866 UN Plaza and runs through March 11. This year’s theme is “Fact and Fiction,” wherein artists tackle politics, propaganda, personal mythology, and notions of objective truth in the age of “Fake News” and “alternative facts.” It’s no accident that this year’s site faces Trump World Tower, but the Spy Store that sits catty-corner betwixt them is a generous dash of kismet. Split into two components across an entire floor of 866UNP, you’ll encounter secret caverns of watercolored matriarchal hieroglyphs, detailed lover’s dens painstakingly built to scale in paper mache, ideological sorting stations, and the dwellings of real and imagined relations that have been stolen by history.
Plus, if you’re too overwhelmed by the relentlessly rich and fashionable crowds this weekend, Spring/Break has its final day on Monday. Tickets are $20.
