The name game

VIPs criss-crossed Manhattan last week to attend museum shows, conference panels, champagne brunches, curator tours and the stands of nearly 500 galleries exhibiting in 11 fairs. The week was vibrant but confusing due to poor co-operation between event organisers and some amateur branding.

The first problem was an illogical association of name and place. Every March the Armory Show sets up shop in New York. This year, the Art Dealers' Association of America (ADAA) decided to hold its smaller but more prestigious fair in the same week. While the ADAA's exhibition took place in the historic Armory building on Park Avenue, the Armory Show was held in two piers on the Hudson River (see slideshow below). “It must drive them as crazy as it drives us,” admitted Giovanni Garcia-Fenech, the Armory Show's communications director.

“Armory” is a powerful brand. It evokes the 1913 Armory Show, which introduced European modern art, including Marcel Duchamp's scandalous “Nude Descending a Staircase”, to America. In 1999 four dealer-organisers of an annual contemporary art fair resurrected the name. Then, in 2007, they sold both name and fair to Merchandise Mart Properties, Inc (MMPI). When MMPI asserts, as it does on its website, that it is “the world's leading owner and operator of showroom buildings and trade show facilities,” it gives us a clue as to why the Armory is one of the world's worst art fairs.

Last week, the 13th edition of the Armory Show hosted 289 galleries-50 more than last year. Although some stellar galleries participated and a dozen or so offered arresting installations, the stands were very uneven. Add to that the indiscriminate lighting, bad acoustics, awkward floor plan, and dearth of food and drink and you've got a fool-proof recipe for a terrible viewing experience. Art, especially on its first outing, can't afford to be treated like run-of-the-mill merchandise; it requires a context that enhances its aura. It's embarrassing to New York that the Armory, the symbolic hub of the week, is delivering so poorly on its legendary brand.

By contrast the ADAA hosted an elegant fair with virtually no brand. “The Art Show” might have been a passable name when the fair was inaugurated 22 years ago, but it's too generic to signify much of anything in the busier art world of 2010. Still, there was much to enjoy once you got inside. The space was packed, with 70 galleries in mid-sized stands, but the effect was dignified discipline, with a good number of solo and themed shows. Particularly striking stands included those devoted to Willem de Kooning (L&M), Hiroshi Sugimoto (Fraenkel Gallery), Fred Wilson (Pace Wildenstein) and Matt Johnson (Blum & Poe).

Of the smaller, younger fairs, the most talked about was “Independent”, although not due to its name. Many stumbled over it, relying instead on long-winded explanations such as “the fair in the old Dia Foundation building on 22nd Street that's free and includes some non-profit spaces like White Columns.” (Needless to say, “Independent” is impossible to google.) What made this fair almost uplifting was the absence of booths. Darren Flook, co-owner of Hotel, a London gallery, and co-director of Independent, explained that “to chop up the space would be to kill it.” Indeed, the layout emulated a rough-and-ready, studio-style museum rather than a mall. Moreover, the overheads were much cheaper than the Armory. “We'd rather trim off the baggage, like a VIP lounge and a thick catalogue that no one reads,” added Mr Flook.

Museums are generally ahead of dealers in the branding game. One institution that got it right for the cluttered art-week was the Whitney Museum of American Art. It declares that its Biennial, a survey of noteworthy art being made in America, is its “signature exhibition”. This year's curators understood that no matter what they named their edition, which is the 75th, everyone would still call it “the Whitney Biennial”, so they went with the non-title, “2010”.

Strangely, the New Museum got it wrong, anointing its exhibition of works from Dakis Joannou's collection, curated by Jeff Koons, "Skin Fruit". Although Roberta Smith of the New York Times called the title “repulsive”, it would appear it wasn't revolting enough to be remembered. Most people called it “the Koons thing”, a nod to the show's exercise in celebrity endorsement. (As a branding rule of thumb, two unconnected nouns, such as “skin” and “fruit”, are entirely unmemorable unless they combine into something that makes sense, like “fruit salad”.) The failure was strange because Mr Koons is a masterful media player, and the New Museum's curators have a record of giving shows unforgettable names, such as “Younger than Jesus”—their first “Generational”, or triennial exhibition of emerging artists. Their titles need to be catchy because the name “New Museum” is itself fatally generic. New York cab drivers inevitably ask: “Which new museum?”

Artists have long been aware of the need to make a name for themselves, and some are natural marketers. One of the works in the Whitney Biennial is by the Bruce High Quality Foundation, a group of five artists who keep their identity secret—a strategy of infamous anonymity that makes sense in the age of art stars. On the same evening that the Whitney Biennial opened, this artistic quintet, working with Vito Schnabel, an art dealer (whose father, Julian, is a filmmaker and celebrity artist), took over an empty retail outlet in SoHo and launched the “Brucennial”, a group show of “420 artists from 911 countries”, who had set their own prices “between zero and several billion dollars.” Their spoof on art-world hype illustrated their savvy.

Perhaps the smartest and most popular show in New York last week was Tino Sehgal's solo exhibition at the Guggenheim. Having opened in mid-February, this show has left the museum entirely empty of art, with the exception of six compelling performers. Mr Sehgal does not allow photos of himself nor of his works, thereby emphasising the ephemeral and interactive qualities of his art. It also makes his brand distinctively conceptual and lends more mystique to his name.

Word has it that Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York City, is going to transform this hive of chaotic art activity into an official “Art Week” next year. Let's hope he can get a conversation going between the city's diverse art professionals. Maybe he'll even encourage them to be hospitable to out-of-towners through greater clarity of communication.

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