Columbia Artists Shine in 2024 Armory Show
Visual Arts alumni and faculty showcased a selection of phenomenal work at this year’s 2024 Armory Show, which took place at the Javits Center in New York City between September 6-8.
Founded in 1994, the Armory Show is a key event in the contemporary art fair circuit. This year’s fair was directed by Kyla McMillan and curated by Eugene Tsai, Former Senior Curator of Contemporary Art at the Brooklyn Museum, Robyn Farrell, Senior Curator from the Kitchen, and Lauren Cornell, Chief Curator of the Hessel Museum of Art and Director of the Graduate Program at the Center for Curatorial Studies. The show featured over 235 galleries for its 30th edition, including 55 first-time exhibitors, from over 35 countries.
Some notable faculty that were featured include Professor Esteban Cabeza de Baca '14 as part of the Garth Greenan Gallery Booth 230. His work, Red Chicano Studio (60 × 60 in, 152.4 × 152.4 cm, Acrylic on canvas, 2024), features yellow light from a window that dances towards a recording studio packed with instruments. The painting alludes to the decades of fervent political and cultural movements that have safeguarded Indigenous and Chicano life and culture. Cabeza de Baca, of Mexican and Native American descent, was profoundly shaped by his parents' intersectional political consciousness and their deep respect for human dignity. This influence drove them to shelter undocumented migrants in their basement during his upbringing.
The 303 Gallery booth featured alumni Esteban Jefferson '19 and Tanya Merrill '18. Jefferson’s practice explores race, identity, and the legacies of colonialism. He employs photography, drawing, painting, and sound installation as methods of documentation. In his paintings, Jefferson meticulously details the central elements of his compositions, creating a striking contrast between the focal points and their surrounding contexts. The works are purposefully left unfinished, reflecting a raw, investigative style that characterizes his artistic process. Merrill’s work creates imaginative narratives to explore humanity’s complex relationship with nature and cultural representations of gender and sexuality through a contemporary lens. Her scenes, which can be fantastic, momentous, and occasionally humorous, are inhabited by animals and characters caught in moments of introspection, fervor, or mischief. Her use of sketched lines to highlight gesture and movement adds a sense of liveliness and immediacy to her canvases. By reinterpreting motifs from art history, Merrill brings a sense of familiarity to her storytelling, using it to address 21st-century issues. Recurring symbols and imagery weave through her work, constructing a rich mythology of characters and settings.
As part of Yossi Milo Gallery, Linus Borgo '22 and Cameron Welch '16 both showcased their innovative works. Welch reconfigures historical elements to reflect on contemporary contexts. Their mosaics blend diverse materials and histories, merging ancient and modern elements to craft new narratives. These intricate constructions interweave contemporary life, Greek myth, and Black histories of oppression and freedom, reflecting the chaotic nature of modern existence. Borgo’s paintings reinterpret personal experiences of transition and disability through myth, exploring themes of transformation and transcendence. By blending contemporary trans theory, ancient myth, and personal experience, these works use the individual as a lens for broader philosophical insights.
Elif Uras ’03 presented as part of Galeri Nev, drawing profound inspiration from her native Turkey, Uras explores its Ottoman heritage and celebrates contemporary changes, such as the increasing role of women in traditionally male-dominated fields. Her work often features curvaceous, feminine forms, as seen in Pregnant Haliç II (2015) in The Met’s Islamic art collection and in her designs at The Met Store for Turkey's centennial.
In the Night Gallery, Anna Rosen '10 showed her new work that intricately layers imagery, continually shifting the picture plane to reveal only deceptive surfaces. Using oil, watercolor, and emulsion on canvas-mounted linen, Rosen creates facades within facades, uncovering new layers of veneer beneath each surface.
Another highlight was in Richard Saltoun Gallery's booth, where Vivienne Koorland ’84 showcased Forest (2019-2022). Known for her use of raw materials such as oil paint, pigment, and stitched cloth, Koorland's detailed and often large-scale paintings incorporate texts, photographs, and ephemera on linen canvas. Her work addresses themes of war, migration, and colonization, reflecting both personal and global conditions.
Other notable alumni who presented include Derrick Adams ’03 who showcased Where My Girls At (36 x 36 inches, Screen print on Lanaquarelle Edition, 2024) as part of Tandem Press. Eileen Quinlan '05 displayed Swipe Set (Egg Rock) (2023), as part of the Vistamare exhibition. The Broadway Gallery booth also featured talented alumni including Lars Fisk '05, Victoria Roth '14, and Josh Tonsfeldt '07.