NEW YORK— While the art market undergoes a price correction of unknown proportions, dealers twiddling their collective thumbs at the Armory Show’s new Modern division at Pier 92 are coming up with the kindest things to say about the first-year endeavor, an offshoot of the decidedly contemporary-focused main event at Pier 94.

This marks a change from the old days — that is, last year — when dealers had no time to express kind thoughts, and hard-knuckled commerce was the sole plat du jour.

“I like that they added this section to the fair,” said New York exhibitor Edward Tyler Nahem. “We’ve had great visits from serious collectors.”

“There’s still money out there,” added Nahem, who had just returned from showing at ARCO in Madrid, “but people are waiting for the dust to settle.”

The dealer’s eclectic stand had works ranging from Ed Kienholz’s Solid States (c. 1965), a found Sony TV set in concrete priced at $65,000, to a stunning Sam Francis abstraction, Toward Disappearance Three (1957), set at $5.8 million. So far, no takers.

“This fair is fantastic,” said seasoned New York dealer James Goodman, a former president of the ADAA. “We’ve never had so many clients come in. It reminds me of the first Art Basel Miami Beach in 2002.”

But Goodman admitted (and he had plenty of company): “We haven’t sold anything yet. But we have had a lot of interest.”

Among the unsold gems in Goodman’s stand was Jackson Pollock’s Vertical Composition (1953–55) for $3.5 million, Philip Guston’s brawny figurative work The Sculptor’s Shoe (1975) for $1.8 million, and a rare and signed Constantin Brancusi Portrait de Femme from 1918 in gouache and pencil on paper laid down on board for $450,000.

Despite the lack of commerce, Goodman said, “I’m for sure going to do this again next year.”

The jury was still out at the booth of New York dealer Joan Washburn. “Come back on Sunday, (the last day of the fair),” she said. “We just have no idea, but I haven’t heard of any sales.” 

Washburn explained that Armory president and cofounder Paul Morris had approached her to participate in the fair during last summer’s Art Basel.

As was the case at many competing stands, Washburn had her share of first-rate material, from Christo’s Wrapped Movie Projector in plastic, rope, twine, and metal storage bin from 1966 for $350,000, to a small (at 4 ½ inches high) but fierce David Smith figurative bronze from 1947, War Landscape, for $135,000.

The first word of a transaction came at the booth of Galerie Thomas from Munich, where a small steel-cut reclining nude by Tom Wesselmann from 1985 had sold for $40,000.

The gallery also had reserves on a fantastic Anselm Kiefer mixed media piece on canvas with a funky model-aircraft carrier attached, Merkaba (2002), at $1.48 million; and a pristine Wassily Kandinsky in watercolor and colored ink, Von Kurve zu Kurve (1933), at $380,000.

“We have a good impression of the fair so far,” said the gallery’s Bettina Beckert. “We’ve met a lot of our old clients, so we’re very optimistic.”

It’s amazing to encounter optimism of any sort these days, but there is a lot of it on Pier 92.

“I think having Picassos on this pier reflects well on the young artists in the next pier [94] and vice-versa,” said Los Angeles dealer Michael Kohn. “The two fairs inform each other beautifully.”

Kohn reported selling three new, small-scaled paintings by L.A. artist Mark Ryden for $30,000 apiece. The works, titled Dark Bear, Dark Girl, and Little Cernunnos, each measure seven by five inches and come in frames carved by the artist. Ryden is a current favorite of Japanese contemporaries Yoshitomo Nara and Takashi Murakami, said Kohn.

The dealer had also sold a Richard Prince collage from 2007, Untitled (Nurse), for $50,000.

But as of this writing, none of Kohn’s pricier fare had sold, including a large and crisp Andy Warhol “Mao” drawing from 1973, which was once in the collection of John and Kimiko Powers and was priced at $600,000, and the 1958 Bruce Conner assemblage Ladies Walking Around, priced at $190,000.

“Coming here with lowered and even zero expectations,” said Kohn, “anything is good, and this has been good.”

“There’s serious interest in serious things,” said Chelsea exhibitor Nicholas Robinson. “But people are taking a lot of time to make up their minds.”

Robinson had sold an early Elizabeth Peyton drawing in graphite on paper, Winston Churchill at the age of five (1994), to a New York collector he hadn’t met before for around $25,000.

“He got a modest discount, so we didn’t get beat up too bad,” Robinson said.

The dealer was also waiting to hear about a reserve placed on an Alice Neel painting of a boy with his toys, Peter B. Kaplan (1950), priced at $295,000.

“I haven’t seen any Neel oil offered for under $300,000,” said Robinson. “We want to do business.”

New York, New York
If it seems a bit redundant for New York galleries to do Armory Modern, most locals seemed excited to be there, even if sales weren’t prodigious. “This is the painting I expect to sell,” says American art dealer Gary Snyder, pointing to a 1959 abstract work by Milton Resnick. Snyder has faith in the canvas, which is priced at $195,000, because he says it represents the kind of quality collectors are looking for. (A sister painting is in the collection of the Whitney Museum.) But he added that “at another time,” the work would be priced around $280,000. Snyder said he finds the two-pier fair “fascinating” because it allows collectors to make direct comparisons between the prices of 20th-century masters and the art of today.

Another dealer in American art, Michael Rosenfeld, had sold a 1941 abstract painting by Werner Drewes for $170,000 to an American collector, and has had “strong interest” in a 1987 Joan Mitchell painting priced at $2.6 million. “This fair looks great,” said Rosenfeld. “The quality of the crowd is what one hopes for. We’ve brought the best of the best at fair prices.” The Drewes work, he said, is the largest of its kind.

Robert Fishko of Forum Gallery had sold a Jules Kirschenbaum painting from c. 1950 to an American collector for $40,000, but he praised the fair in particular for exposing hometown dealers to “a different crowd than we’re used to seeing,” namely, international collectors who fly in for fair week. “These are serious, knowledgeable people, and they ask the right questions.”

As for those New Yorkers dealing exclusively in photography, Yancey Richardson had sold several of Sharon Core's photographs of still lifes after Old Master paintings for $6,500 apiece; one went to what gallery director David Carmona would only describe as “a great American museum.” And Bruce Silverstein had parted with several archival pigment prints from 2006 by Shinichi Maruyama for $7,500 apiece. He also had on offer a selection of works by Weegee and Aaron Siskind, rare examples of works by Robert Mapplethorpe and Edward Weston, a full wall of Robert Frank, another of John Coplans, and a 1963 Diane Arbus print for $325,000. “Photography is still undervalued,” he said.

Judd Tully is Editor at Large of Art+Auction. Additional reporting by Sarah Douglas, Staff Writer at Art+Auction.