The 2024 edition of the fair will be the first to be led by Bridget Finn, a former gallerist who was hired to serve as the fair’s director last year. This year’s figure is slightly above the 277 galleries that took part in the marquee US fair last year; the 2022 edition also hosted 283 exhibitors.

The fair will also include 32 first-time exhibitors, the biggest grouping of newcomers to a Miami Beach fair since 2008. Among those are Gallery Wendi Norris, ILY2, Fabian Lang, Dastan Gallery, Gallery Baton, Pearl Lam Galleries, Catinca Tabacaru, Gallery Nosco, Gajah Gallery, and Sweetwater. While participating galleries come from 34 countries and territories, the fair said that around two-thirds are from the Americas.  

Among the blue-chip exhibitors are Gagosian, Hauser & Wirth, Pace, David Zwirner, Blum, Sadie Coles HQ, Paula Cooper Gallery, Jeffrey Deitch, Gladstone Gallery, David Kordansky Gallery, Lehmann Maupin, Galerie Lelong & Co., Victoria Miro, Mnuchin Gallery, Thaddaeus Ropac, and Jack Shainman.

Additionally, 25 galleries will show in the fair’s main Galleries section for the first time. Of those, 21 of them are doing so after previously participating in a different section; they include Instituto de Visión, Edel Assanti, Daniel Faria Gallery, Central Fine, and Afriart Gallery and Rele Gallery, who will share a booth. Several of these galleries benefit from the introduction of a minimum-size booth option.

In a statement, Finn said, “It was incredibly important that we carve out a more equitable path to participation for small and mid-sized galleries entering the main sector of this show, and the proof is in the extraordinary number of newcomers joining this edition. We remain super agile and attuned to the changing and individual needs of our galleries and their artists, and committed to creating an absolutely cannot-miss experience for them and for collectors, museums and foundations, major cultural partners, and visitors from Miami Beach and around the world.”

In addition to the main Galleries section, the fair will also include five additional sections: Nova, for work made in the past three years; Positions, for solo showcases of emerging artists; Survey, for presentations of work made before 2000; Kabinett, for presentations within a main booth; and Meridians, for large-scale works, which this year is curated Yasmil Raymond, the outgoing director of Portikus. Details on the latter two sections will be announced at a later date. This year’s edition will also see the return of the fair’s Conversations program, which will be organized by writer Kimberly Bradley.

Galleries in the Nova section include Charles Moffett, Kendra Jayne Patrick, Pequod Co., Silverlens, Soft Opening, Gallery Vacany, and Welancora. Positions includes Sebastian Gladstone, Gordon Robichaux, Gypsum Gallery, Peana, Proyectos Ultravioleta, and Verve. And Survey will feature Luis De Jesus, Charlie James Gallery, Lyles & King, PKM Gallery, and Ryan Lee.

“We have an exceptional roster of galleries participating in our Miami Beach show this year, coming from all corners of the Americas, Europe, and Asia,” Finn said. “The proposals in Nova, Positions, and Survey are of exceptional quality and ambition, and it’s clear that galleries in the main sector will not be holding back come December, bringing their best of the best to this all-important fair in the world’s leading art market.”

Galleries

Nova

*Espacio Valverde and Fabian Lang will share a booth.

Positions

Survey

McMillan has a range of experience in the art market. Most recently, she founded her itinerant gallery and consultancy company, Saint George Projects, which has staged exhibitions for artists like Alvaro Barrington and Henri Paul Broyard in New York, Los Angeles, Johannesburg, Berlin, and elsewhere.

Prior to that, she was a director at David Zwirner for a year, and worked at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise for four years, where she was also a director. She has also worked at Alexander Gray Associates and the Studio Museum in Harlem.

“I am honored to join The Armory Show at this important moment in the fair’s history,” said McMillan said in statement. “My goal is to empower collectors and emphasize the fair’s role as a platform for artists, galleries and art enthusiasts. The Armory Show has long been celebrated as a foundational fair for New York and the US art market. I look forward to building on The Armory Show’s achievements, while also championing new voices and creating opportunities for diverse perspectives in contemporary art.”

McMillan’s appointment is the first major leadership change at the fair since it was acquired by Frieze in 2023. The fair’s next edition is scheduled to run in early September. Marking its 30th anniversary this year, the upcoming edition announced its exhibitor list last month. Frieze’s director of fairs, Kristell Chadé, and its Americas director, Christine Messineo, were in charge during the application process.

In a statement, Chadé said, “We are thrilled to welcome Kyla McMillan as Director of The Armory Show. Her wide-ranging experience and creative drive will undoubtedly take the fair to new heights, fostering an inclusive and dynamic environment. Her past projects have demonstrated a talent for reaching new audiences and forging meaningful connections with art.”

The Marciano Art Foundation was founded in 2013, when the Marciano brothers purchased a former masonic temple on Wilshire Boulevard, not far from LA’s Miracle Mile. It opened to the public in 2017, with an exhibition drawing from the brothers’ blue-chip holdings, including pieces by Sterling Ruby, Christopher Wool, Albert Oehlen, and Mike Kelley.

But, the foundation closed its doors abruptly in November 2019, saying at the time, “We have no present plans to reopen.” The foundation had laid off some 60 employees, many from its visitor services department, just days after 70 employees had announced a union drive. At the time, the union claimed on social media that the foundation’s sudden closing was due to the unionization efforts, calling the layoffs “a gross obstruction of workers’ rights.” Shortly afterward, the union filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board and the laid-off employees filed a lawsuit against the foundation, which was settled in July 2020 for around $205,000 to the workers and $70,000 in legal fees.

In the interim, the Marciano Art Foundation’s building has been activated by a select number of exhibitions by outside organizations. The most prominent of these is by Gagosian gallery; the Marcianos are longtime clients of the gallery. Between 2021 and 2023, Gagosian mounted three solo shows at the foundation for Oehlen, Urs Fischer, and Anselm Kiefer. Additionally, in 2022, LAXART (now called the Brick) mounted a two-night program at the space, and last fall, LAND (Los Angeles Nomadic Division) staged an opera by Justen Leroy in its theater space.

In a statement to ARTnews, a spokesperson for the foundation said, “Following a period of prolonged closure brought on by the pandemic, Marciano Art Foundation determined that it was important to make use of this historic building by donating it to partner organizations for them to realize unique projects and public programs on an ongoing basis, alongside allowing access to the collection–beyond educational groups–for free and by appointment as part of a new, scaled down model.”

In addition to growing, managing, and mounting exhibitions of the Marciano collection, part of Skerath’s charge, per a press release, is to lead the organization’s “efforts to lend its historic Wilshire Boulevard building to non-profit organizations and various other creatives to realize unique projects and public programs on an ongoing basis. This new direction will allow MAF to operate under this renewed commitment to the public.” (According to the spokesperson, Skerath will review the foundation’s staffing needs over the coming months and “advise on the best direction for the Foundation’s long-term future.”)

In a statement, Skerath said, “I’m excited to join the Marciano Art Foundation as Director, and I look forward to collaborating with the team to continue to expand and exhibit the collection and to explore new creative opportunities for the Foundation’s unique spaces.”

In February, the foundation presented its first official collection exhibition since its closure, “Transmissions: Selections from the Marciano Collection,”co-curated by Douglas Fogle and Skerath. The Marciano Art Foundation now maintains regular public hours, Tuesday to Saturday, from 12pm to 6pm; admission is free but visitors are required to reserve a time slot to come to the foundation.

Skerath has been an independent curator and writer for a decade. With Fogel, she cofounded a curatorial enterprise named Studio LBV. Through that company, the duo served as founding artistic directors of Palomar, a private foundation on Lake Como in Italy, and they also edited the 2021 volume Making Strange: The Chara Schreyer Collection, focused on the late California collector’s holdings.

Additionally, her curatorial credits include “Friends in a Field: Conversations with Raoul De Keyser” at MuZEE in Ostend, Belgium; a solo exhibition for Shio Kusaka at LA’s Neutra VDL Studio and Residences; and group exhibitions at Thomas Dane Gallery, Marc Selwyn Gallery, and Kayne Griffin Corcoran Gallery.

In a statement, Olivia Marciano, who has previously held the role of the foundation’s artistic director, said, “We are thrilled to welcome Hanneke Skerath to the Marciano Art Foundation. As we place our focus on fostering a collaborative creative environment for the Los Angeles community, Hanneke’s extensive experience could not be more fitting. In her years working in L.A. she has worked across both traditional and unconventional contexts, demonstrating her distinct talent to realize projects that prioritize collaboration, insight, and rigor.”

Nawi, who has worked independently for several years, has organized several acclaimed US biennials in the past five years, including the 2023 edition of Made in L.A. at the Hammer Museum (with Pablo José Ramirez) and 2022’s Prospect.5 in New Orleans (with Naima J. Keith). She has also curated solo exhibitions for artists such as Mark Bradford, Michael Rakowitz, Adler Guerrier, Haroon Mirza, John Akomfrah, and Shana Lukter.

Nawi has previously held curatorial positions at the Pérez Art Museum Miami, the Guggenheim Museum in New York, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. More recently, she has worked as a guest curator and curatorial adviser for the Contemporary Austin, as well as a serving as a curatorial consultant on public art projects for Orange Barrel Media, founded by ARTnews Top 200 Collector Pete Scantland. Earlier this year, she organized the inaugural exhibition of the Olivia Foundation in Mexico City.

In an email to ARTnews, Nawi said, “I first visited LACMA as an undergrad at UCLA and the evolution of the museum under [director] Michael Govan’s leadership has offered several models that I have looked to throughout my career for how we might keep museums relevant, accessible, and adaptable. On a personal level, exhibitions at LACMA have had a profound impact on my thinking.”

Nawi’s appointment comes as LACMA prepares to open a new building that will present works from across centuries of art history side by side. (Construction for the Peter Zumthor–designed building, now called the David Geffen Galleries, is scheduled to be completed later this year.) Nawi joins Rita Gonzalez, the head of the contemporary art department, and assistant curator Dyhandra Lawson, as well as two curatorial assistants.

“I’m excited in particular to work alongside Rita Gonzalez, who has consistently been doing the work of writing and rewriting art histories in ways that have changed the terms of our field,” Nawi said. “Additionally, this is the first opportunity I’ve had to situate contemporary conversations and artworks within a larger, longer trajectory of transnational, indigenous, diasporic, and local art and culture—it’s an interesting new context for me.”

In a statement, Gonzalez said, “Diana is known for her deep knowledge and connection to artists in Southern California as well as her impressive history of organizing international biennials, public art projects, and museum exhibitions. She will join Dyhandra Lawson and I in overseeing a wide-ranging and constantly growing collection of contemporary art and strengthening its presence throughout LACMA’s campus.”

It’s tempting to say that photographer George Platt Lynes was ahead of his time. Between the 1930s and his untimely death at age 48, he produced a body of work—elegant fashion photography, sleek images of nude men—that feel fresh today. But Hidden Master: The Legacy of George Platt Lynes, a recently released documentary by Sam Shahid, argues that, in fact, Lynes was very much of his time. The ’30s and ’40s in New York saw a bustling scene of gay men who threw fabulous cocktail parties, created art, and, of course, had sex with each other. Hidden Master is quick to remind viewers that plenty of gay men were out in their own way, decades before Stonewall. At the center of this milieu, which is largely understudied, was Lynes. “We see this world that’s gone… through George’s eyes,” says Steven Haas, an art historian and the director of Lynes’s foundation, at the beginning of the documentary.

Toward the end of Hidden Master, Shahid asks several interviewees—including Vince Aletti, Nick Mauss, Mary Panzar, and Bruce Weber—why Lynes isn’t part of the canon. The resounding answer seems to be that they don’t know. It is surprising that Lynes’s images aren’t as prominent as those of his artistic successors like Andy Warhol or Robert Mapplethorpe. But then again, many of Lynes’s best works went unshown during his lifetime: when he was creating his male nudes, it would have been taboo, if not illegal, to exhibit them. What he did show, in magazines like Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue, was his fashion photography: dreamy images of women in the latest couture. His innovations in that genre include an early form of the now-ubiquitous ring light, which are reflected in his models’ eyes.

Though Lynes wasn’t publicly showing his nudes, he wasn’t exactly in the closet either. His nephew, George Platt Lynes II, says he was one of those people who never needed to come out; his minister father and high society mother did not disown him. In the 1920s, he traveled to Paris and befriended Gertrude Stein and her circle; Stein would eventually appoint him as her official photographer. During one steamship voyage across the Atlantic, he met Julien Levy, who exhibited his work. Through Stein, he met Glenway Wescott and Monroe Wheeler; they would essentially form a throuple for three decades. (Their circle included another famous throuple, artists Paul Cadmus, Jared French, and Margaret French, who often collaborated as PaJaMa.) The three lived together on the Upper East Side, at times attempting to pass for roommates. At the height of his fame, Lynes would befriend Lincoln Kirstein, the founder of the New York City Ballet, who also made Lynes the company’s official photographer. Through it all, Lynes made his nudes, gently convincing men—athletes, dancers, sailors, lovers—to disrobe before his camera.

A lover’s death in World War II, the throuple’s dissolution, and another bad breakup led Lynes to move to Hollywood for two years, where he worked for Vogue; there, he lived beyond his means and quickly derailed his career. When he returned to New York in 1948, he had been supplanted in the fashion magazines by Irving Penn and Richard Avedon, who had rented out Lynes’s former studio. (Lynes did not mince words about Penn and Avedon, whose work he called “spinsterish” and “the all-time low in formula-dreariness,” respectively.) He declared bankruptcy at least twice. Much of his equipment was repossessed by the IRS (his brother bought it back then loaned it to him), and he used a Picasso as collateral for another loan.

Lynes destroyed much of his early work and entrusted the rest to sexologist Alfred Kinsey and painter Bernard Perlin. They live on in various archives, and much of it still has not been exhibited. As dealer Peter Hay Halpert points out, they have been regulated back to the closet. Perhaps they will find new life once again.

The inaugural outing will be a solo show for New York–based artist Derrick Adams at the APMA Cabinet, a nearly 2,000-square-foot, ground-level project space in the headquarters of Amorepacific, the cosmetics company owned by ARTnews Top 200 Collector Suh Kyung-bae. The exhibition will run September 3 to October 12.

This isn’t the first time Amorepacific has collaborated with a mega-gallery in Seoul. When Pace opened its expanded Seoul location in 2022, in tandem with the first edition of Frieze Seoul, it did so with a teahouse by Osulloc, one of Amorepacific’s subsidiaries.  

Last August, Gagosian hired Jiyoung Lee to lead its operations in South Korea. Lee had previously worked in similar capacities for Western galleries like Sprüth Magers and Esther Schipper.

For the exhibition, titled “The Strip,” Adams will debut new works showing mannequin heads in display windows at beauty shops that are related to his earlier series, “Style Variations,” featuring mannequins with brightly colored wigs set against stark white backgrounds. “I’m always picking subjects that are activated by my interest in drawing in the viewer,” Adams told ARTnews in 2021.

In a statement, Gagosian senior director Nick Simunovic said, “It’s a tremendous honor for Gagosian to be the first gallery to program this extraordinary space at Amorepacific’s headquarters. The venue is an ideal location to celebrate Derrick Adams’s first exhibition in Korea and to share his work with such an important community of art enthusiasts and collectors.”

More than half of this year’s exhibiting galleries will present solo booths at the fair, with highlights including Martha Jackson Jarvis at Susan Inglett Gallery, Tina Barney at Kasmin, Billie Zangewa at Lehmann Maupin, Lee ShinJa at Tina Kim Gallery, and Chase Hall at Pace Prints. First-time exhibitors include Canada, Hales Gallery, Charles Moffett, and Timothy Taylor.

For its 36th edition, the Art Show will introduce two new programs. The first is called “Spotlight On…” that will focus on a different city each year, with the inaugural spotlight being on Houston. As part of this initiative, the fair will organize a panel and a series of video interviews exploring the city’s art scene. At the fair, four Houston-based galleries will have booths: Inman Gallery, McClain Gallery, Josh Pazda Hiram Butler, and Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino.

The fair will also partner with the professional curators organization AAMC Foundation to host a convening on the topic of “Leadership Now” in the curatorial field. The convening will bring together some 60 curators from nonprofits for a series of closed-doors discussion. (A similar curatorial initiative has long been a hallmark of the Expo Chicago fair.)

In a statement, dealer Anthony Meier, the ADAA’s president, said, “The intimate environment created by The Art Show in the Park Avenue Armory is unparalleled, as it offers a unique platform for dealers to take risks they might not consider at other fairs: presenting solo exhibitions by less established or underknown artists and thoughtfully curated group exhibitions that shed new light on a historical moment or artistic movement.”

The full exhibitor list follows below.

ACA Galleries (New York, NY)
George Adams Gallery (New York, NY)
Peg Alston Fine Arts (New York, NY)
Altman Siegel (San Francisco, CA)
Nicelle Beauchene Gallery (New York, NY)
Berggruen Gallery (San Francisco, CA)
Berry Campbell (New York, NY)
Peter Blum Gallery (New York, NY)
Jonathan Boos (New York, NY)
CANADA (New York, NY)
Castelli Gallery (New York, NY)
James Cohan (New York, NY)
Crown Point Press (San Francisco, CA)
DC Moore Gallery (New York, NY)
Tibor de Nagy (New York, NY)
Andrew Edlin Gallery (New York, NY)
Derek Eller Gallery (New York, NY)
Eric Firestone Gallery (New York, NY & East Hampton, NY)
Debra Force Fine Art, Inc. (New York, NY)
Forum Gallery (New York, NY)
Peter Freeman, Inc. (New York, NY)
James Fuentes (New York, NY & Los Angeles, CA)
GAVLAK (Los Angeles, CA & Palm Beach, FL)
Hales Gallery (New York, NY)
Hirschl & Adler Modern (New York, NY)
Nancy Hoffman Gallery (New York, NY)
Hosfelt Gallery (San Francisco, CA)
Susan Inglett Gallery (New York, NY)
Inman Gallery (Houston, TX)
Kasmin (New York, NY)
June Kelly Gallery (New York, NY)
Anton Kern Gallery (New York, NY)
Tina Kim Gallery (New York, NY)
Kohn Gallery (Los Angeles, CA)
Krakow Witkin Gallery (Boston, MA)
Kraushaar Galleries (New York, NY)
Greg Kucera Gallery (Seattle, WA)
Lehmann Maupin (New York, NY)
Galerie Lelong & Co. (New York, NY)
Locks Gallery (Philadelphia, PA)
Luxembourg + Co. (New York, NY)
Barbara Mathes Gallery (New York, NY)
McClain Gallery (Houston, TX)
Miles McEnery Gallery (New York, NY)
Anthony Meier (Mill Valley, CA)
Charles Moffett (New York, NY)
Nazarian / Curcio (Los Angeles, CA)
Jill Newhouse Gallery (New York, NY)
Ortuzar Projects (New York, NY)
P·P·O·W (New York, NY)
Pace Prints (New York, NY)
Franklin Parrasch Gallery (New York, NY)
Paulson Fontaine Press (Berkeley, CA)
Josh Pazda Hiram Butler (Houston, TX)
Perrotin (New York, NY & Los Angeles, CA)
Petzel (New York, NY)
Almine Rech (New York, NY)
Ricco/Maresca Gallery (New York, NY)
Roberts Projects (Los Angeles, CA)
Michael Rosenfeld Gallery (New York, NY)
Mary Ryan Gallery (New York, NY)
Sapar Contemporary (New York, NY)
Schoelkopf Gallery (New York, NY)
Marc Selwyn Fine Art (Beverly Hills, CA)
Susan Sheehan Gallery (New York, NY)
Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino (Houston, TX)
Sperone Westwater (New York, NY)
Timothy Taylor (New York, NY)
Leslie Tonkonow Artworks + Projects (New York, NY)
TOTAH (New York, NY)
Two Palms (New York, NY)
Van Doren Waxter (New York, NY)
Venus Over Manhattan (New York, NY)
Michael Werner (New York, NY & Los Angeles, CA)
Yares Art (New York, NY & Santa Fe, NM & Beverly Hills, CA)

Born in 1985, Choi is known for making sculptures using discarded everyday objects. She has had exhibitions at Seoul institutions such as Art Sonje (in 2023), Amado Art Space (2022), and the Buk-Seoul Museum of Art (2022). At Frieze Seoul, Choi will present a large-scale installation that will meld together found items, including exhaust pipes and air-conditioning units; the piece will “consider the fair venue as a vast technological medium,” according to a release.

Choi was selected by a four-member jury that included artist Jeon Jonnho and curators Serena Choo (of the Leeum Museum of Art in Seoul), Kim Sung woo (Primary Practice, Seoul), and Yung Ma (Hayward Gallery, London).

Frieze launched its artist award program in 2014 with its London fair; past winners of that award include Rachel Rose, Alberta Whittle, Sung Tieu, and Abbas Zahedi. It also staged one for its New York fair in 2018, 2019, and 2021. The winners during those years were Kapwani Kiwanga, Lauren Halsey, and Precious Okoyomon, respectively.

This is the second time Frieze has awarded a prize through its Seoul fair. The first Seoul winner was Woo Hannah.

In a statement, Frieze Seoul director Patrick Lee said, “With the Frieze Artist Awards in both Seoul and London spotlighting advanced technologies this year, it will be fascinating to see how two artists interpret this concept differently. Our heartfelt congratulations to Choi Goen, a highly respected figure in Korea’s art scene. We are privileged to showcase artists of Goen’s caliber at Frieze Seoul, and eagerly anticipate our audience discovering more about her remarkable work.”

Gladstone had opened her gallery in 1980 in a shoebox space on 57th Street before moving to larger digs. First, she relocated to SoHo around 1983, then to Chelsea in 1996. She placed an emphasis on growing organically, and was “attuned to the granular movements and energies that best serve artists,” as she once told ARTnews. Her gallery now has locations in Brussels, Seoul, Rome, and Los Angeles, in addition to its three spaces in New York.

Over the decades, she established her gallery as one of a select few blue-chip commercial spaces that had a strong curatorial vision, with an eye toward the conceptual. Among the artists whose careers she helped shepherd to stardom are Matthew Barney, Jenny Holzer, Richard Prince, Sarah Lucas, George Condo, and others.

ARTnews reached out to art world luminaries people close to Gladstone, asking them to write about the woman they knew. Their answers follow below.

Kathy Halbreich
Independent Curator

There are a million words that I could use to describe my dear friend, but none seem vivid enough. Barbara was a woman of conscience—emotionally and intellectually balanced, strong, loyal, tough when she needed to be, successful, generous beyond measure, kind but not sentimental, and most deeply engaged with the artists and staff who brought her immense pleasure when their voices grew clear and they advanced along the path they dreamed of. Her family went through a lot and came out closer. 

As the images unspool of the times spent together—laughing, arguing, gossiping, and sharing improbable ideas that looked inevitable to her—I keep imagining Barbara will walk around the corner as she always has, no matter what (and there were a lot of “whats” that would have knocked many others out). Usually, she came with a homemade soup or ice cream or a bottle of very good tequila, or all three, to share among friends: artists, writers, musicians, curators, deep thinkers, optimists. 

Barbara had many loves.

She loved architectural history and the newest technological advances, although AI scared her before many knew anything about artificial intelligence. She had remarkable taste and was elegance personified; her table, where many of us gathered often, was set with an eye for a calm sort of beauty and all her black garments somehow looked colorful. Her elegance also was enhanced by an unshakable integrity and an enduring commitment to the messiness of creativity. Some days, we thought the things that made us love what we did were disappearing. But nothing could stop Barbara from being the most ambitious advocate for those she believed in—artists as well as young musicians and puppies trained by prisoners, two of which came to live with her. 

She gave substance to the word “invincible”—she had the strongest will to continue of anyone I have known; she loved the passion and devotion that shaped her days, the more exciting and energizing. Anything less than a wholly animated life was out of the question. Even at 89, she often traveled across continents to an artist’s openings and, indeed, she had recently returned from trips to Seoul and Basel, when she suddenly became ill, having just arrived for Matthew Barney’s opening in Paris. 

It wasn’t supposed to end this way. I last saw her on June 4 at a MoMA event, and she looked fabulous. Sunday, after a shockingly abrupt and blessedly short illness, Barbara vanished. I kept wondering when she would tire. Never seemed possible. 

On the first day of installing Elizabeth Murray’s drawing show [recently on view at Gladstone Gallery in New York], at the extraordinary townhouse designed by Edward Durrell Stone, I got a call from Barbara; she just had landed from Seoul and apologized for not being able to join me that day. I was glad, because I wanted to tidy up a few things as sometimes the smallest detail would disturb her. She appeared the next morning, and we shared lots of joy that day. She was happy with the show, with Paul Chan’s tender essay about touch, with the artists and curators whose talks I would be moderating, and with how happy Elizabeth’s family was. It was an enormous gift she gave to me. When I was struggling to figure out the works I wanted to have framed, she said something no one else ever has remarked and something I have never said to anyone either: “Frame them all.” She was an unstinting partner, and she loved wholeheartedly.

We all know that Barbara didn’t suffer fools, but she was far from a snob or someone who made seating arrangements based on hierarchy. She inhaled new ideas and was fueled by having young thinkers around her. (But she also relished the experimental ambition of established artists such as Robert Rauschenberg, whose work she began to represent in 2021.) A curator I have known since he was just out of grad school wrote me last night and said, “I will always remember how kind Barbara was to me when I was so young and naive and inexperienced. She never made me feel that I didn’t deserve her time or a place at her table. Immensely grateful.”

I had the same experience when I first met Barbara in the late 1980s and was invited to the dinner for Jenny Holzer’s extraordinary 1990 US Pavilion. I expected I would be seated by the swinging kitchen door and, knowing few in the crowd, wondered why I had agreed to attend. I soon found myself in the middle of the palatial room, at Barbara’s table. And until Sunday, I never left it. 

Jay Sanders
Executive Director & Chief Curator, Artists Space

It’s hard to fathom an art world without Barbara. Her integrity, fierce wit, and mercurial outlook kept everyone around her utterly alert and calling upon their higher facilities to keep up. I can’t remember a single conversation that dwelled in the status quo or reinforced an unexamined point of view; it just wasn’t possible with Barbara.

Along with being a friend and mentor, she was an invaluable Artists Space board member and collaborator, playing a particularly critical role in supporting and advising on our current space in Cortlandt Alley as we materialized it. While certainly centered in her gallery and its stellar program (which included our shared obsession Jack Smith), she saw our field clearly, sociologically, and cared immensely for the parts of it that, to her, mattered. I will treasure every moment I spent with her, and hold a special place for the annual Perelman Music Program concert she hosted each summer in Long Island. As [choreographer and artist] Sarah Michelson just reminded me, this was her self-proclaimed “favorite night of the year,” as she beamed as a witness and active participant of young people realizing their dreams.

Shaun Caley Regen
President, Regen Projects

I was lucky enough to meet Barbara in the mid-’80s, when I was an art critic. Over the years she has been a mentor, friend, mother-in-law, and inspiration.  

Her brilliance, fearlessness, curiosity, conviction, humor, rigor, discipline, and passion made for a larger-than-life, colorful, and truly incredible presence. The trajectory of her gallery throughout these four decades has been legendary, but also a primer on how such a thing can be achieved.  

Barbara has touched so many of our lives, both artists’ and everyone else’s, brought us to the table, and shown us how much art matters, and what we can achieve by showing up for art. She will be missed by many, but her legacy will live on. Thank you, Barbara, for showing us the way to get things done, and all of the incredible moments and warmth along the way. You will be missed with profound love and admiration.

Jim Hodges
Artist, represented by Gladstone since 2010

No doubt there were plenty of loving friends who cherished Barbara, answering your invitation to share a few words in the terrible wake of her passing. I trust all those voices combine to approach a nearness to her beautiful powerful nature that we all gravitated to and really could never get enough of. What an extraordinary profound person she was. We will all miss her always and remain so tremendously grateful to have had her in our lives, we lucky ones, who found such an intensity that she generated the treasure we each were gifted with from all she was and gave. Her exquisite model of how a person can be, how a life can be made and dreams realized for not just herself but for all of us who benefit from the efforts and belief she embodied.

The world is exponentially more brilliant because of Barbara in it, and a tragic mournful void expanded in sadness in her departure. She who stayed always youthful in her enthusiasm and excitement that artists across a spectrum of practices found her supporting and caring attention inspiring us to reach higher, strive, and give. She was a perfect example of how it can happen. A life that touched so many and a constant measured consistency that we all could count on. What an incredible love she was. I miss her so and am so very grateful that we had the time we had of friendship and such fun making magic together! What a treasure she was and will always remain in the hearts that are forever informed and changed because of her.

I’m sending all my love to those at the gallery who must more than anyone feel the impossible abyss her death leaves. There are never enough words or depth of feelings to share in these crushing sorrowful times, but hoping you all are finding comfort and love in knowing you are all a reflection of the magnificent life she manifested in the incredible world she imagined and made come true!

With my deepest condolences to all my friends at Gladstone Gallery.

Love,
Jim

Aimed to recognize artists at all stages of their careers, the Latinx Artist Fellowship is awarded to five early career artists, five mid-career artists, and five established artists. Among this year’s winners, whose practices span painting and printmaking to installation and performance to photography and social practice, are pillars of the Latinx art community like Pepón Osorio, Yreina D. Cervántez, John Valadez, and Guillermo Gómez-Peña, as well as closely watched ones like Elle Pérez, Sandy Rodriguez, Joel Gaitan, and Chris E. Vargas. (More information on each artist can be found on USLAF’s website.)

“This is what we want this fellowship to be, and this is how we think about the X [in Latinx],” USLAF executive director Adriana Zavala told ARTnews. “This, to me, feels like such an extraordinarily intersectional cohort of artists. I think of all of them, in distinct ways, as dissenters and disruptors—the way they disrupt, siloing tendencies and political exclusion writ large, not just for Latinx artists but for the Latinx community, the Black community, the LGBTQ community.”

This year’s cohort was selected by jury that consists of curators from USLAF’s partner institutions—Angelica Arbelaez at the Whitney Museum, Rita Gonzalez at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Cesáreo Moreno at the National Museum of Mexican Art, Maria Elena Ortiz at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth—as well as three of last year’s fellows: artists Felipe Baeza, Sofía Gallisá Muriente, and Tina Tavera. In having artists serve on the jury, Zavala said the organization wanted to ensure that it was “co-creating this with the artists.”

Earlier this year, USLAF launched “X as Intersection: Writing on Latinx Art,” which will commission short essays on each of the previous and current winners divided into seven different collections. The series title, Zavala said, is meant “to signal that, for us, Latinx is a concept. It’s not an aesthetic. It’s not a homogenizing identity. It’s a concept, a political concept, a creative concept.”

The inaugural collection, “Latinx Unsettling,” is edited by Zavala and focuses on artists like Elia Alba, Coco Fusco, Ester Hernandez, Juan Sánchez, and Vincent Valdez, while the second collection, “Materiality of Memory,” is edited by Mary Thomas, USLAF’s director of programs, and will highlight artists such as Lucia Hierro, Carmelita Tropicana, Consuelo Jimenez-Underwood, and Mario Ybarra Jr. The first collection will go live in January, with calls for papers for the other five categories being announced through next year.

“What these artists really need is writing about their work, across multiple genres,” from journalistic pieces to more scholarly articles by both established and early-career writers, Zavala said. “At the end of 2026, we will have 75 essays on Latinx contemporary artists on our website that we’ll be building. I think that’s going to be an extraordinary tool for general audiences, for students at every level, and for scholars seeking out new artists.”

The Latinx Art Fellowship was established in 2021 with $5 million from the Mellon Foundation and the Ford Foundation to fund the first five years of the program, which is set to expire in 2025.

“We’re working very hard to keep all of the work that we do going,” Zavala said. “We’re hopeful that 2025–26 will not be the sunsetting of USLAF or the Latinx Artist Fellowship. But it’s important for people to understand that this is not a given. There’s a lot of work that goes into it every single day.”

The full list of the 2023 Latinx Artist Fellows follows below.

Alberto Aguilar
Artist
Chicago, IL

Yreina D. Cervántez
Painter, Printmaker, and Muralist
Los Angeles, CA

Lizania Cruz
Participatory, Installation, Multidisciplinary, Conceptual Artist, Printmaker, and Designer
New York, NY

Jenelle Esparza
Multidisciplinary Artist
San Antonio, TX

Fronterizx Collective
(Jenea Sanchez & Gabriela Muñoz)
Interdisciplinary Social Practice
Phoenix, AZ / Agua Prieta, Mexico

Joel Gaitan
Sculptor
Miami, FL

Guillermo Gómez-Peña
Performance Artist and Writer
San Francisco CA / Mexico City, Mexico

Maria Maea
Multidisciplinary Artist
Los Angeles, CA

Charo Oquet
Multidisciplinary Artist
Miami, FL

Pepón (Benjamin) Osorio
Visual Artist
Philadelphia, PA

Elle Pérez
Artist and Photographer
Bronx, NY

Gadiel Rivera Herrera
Visual Artist
San Juan, PR

Sandy Rodriguez
Artist and Researcher
Los Angeles, CA

John Valadez
Painter, Muralist, and Photographer
Los Angeles, CA

Chris E. Vargas
Transdisciplinary Artist
Los Angeles, CA / Bellingham, WA