NEW YORK, NY.- The Armory Show and its partners Pommery Champagne, TPC Art Finance, and Sauer announced the winners of three prizes to exhibitor presentations in the Platform, Presents, and Focus sections of the fair.

POMMERY PRIZE

Supported by Pommery Champagne, the annual Pommery Prize of $25,000 was awarded to Reynier Leyva Novo for their presentation of What it is, what it has been (2020-2022) by El Apartamento. Now in its fourth year, the Pommery Prize recognizes an outstanding presentation of large-scale artwork from the Platform section at The Armory Show. The prize is awarded to both the artist and gallery. The jury for the prize included Mailys Vranken, President of Vranken Pommery America; Liz Munsell, Barnett & Annalee Newman Curator of Contemporary Art at the Jewish Museum; and Sloane Shaffer, Collector. Previous winners of the prize include Jane Lombard Gallery (New York) for their presentation of Michael Rakowitz’s The Invisible Enemy Should Not Exist, Room F, Section 1, Northwest Palace of Nimrud in 2021, Night Gallery (Los Angeles) for their exhibition of Christine Wang’s Meme Girl in 2020, and Lisson Gallery (New York) for their presentation of Ryan Gander’s Het Spel (My neotonic ovoid contribution to Modernism) in 2019.

Novo’s What it is, what it has been is a monumental sculpture based on the bust of Cuban apostle Jose Marti, created by sculptor Jose Sicre in 1936 for Havana's Plaza Cívica, which became Plaza de la Revolución in 1961. The sculpture, which reproduces the original scale of the head (3 x 2 x 2 m), emerges as a result of the overlapping of 365 layers of paint on a model of the monument. Such a process of consecutive "retouching" led to the blurring and denaturalization of the man behind the image through eroding and emptying.




In addition to the monetary reward, the winning artist of the Pommery Prize has the opportunity to create a new work for an exhibition at the Domaine Vranken-Pommery in Reims, France. The Pommery Prize pays homage to Madame Pommery’s love for the arts, continuing a tradition that started in 1882 when Madame Pommery commissioned French sculptor Gustav Navlet to create four sculptures for the cellars of the producer’s estate. Each year since 2002, Pommery has opened the Gallo-Roman cellars to be used as a platform for artists to express their talents and create unique works of art for the Expérience Pommery exhibition in September.

TPC ART FINANCE PRESENTS PRIZE

Today also saw the awarding of the TPC Art Finance Presents Prize to Rutger Brandt Gallery (Amsterdam) for their solo presentation of artwork by Radenko Milak. While this is the fair’s first partnership with TPC Art Finance, the Presents Booth Prize was established in 2017 and is given to an exceptional and innovative presentation from the Presents section of the fair. Rutger Brandt Gallery received a prize of $12,500. Jurors for the prize include Naomi Baigell, Managing Director of TPC Art Finance; Dr. Darryl Atwell, Collector; and Drew Sawyer, Phillip Leonian and Edith Rosenbaum Leonian Curator of Photography at the Brooklyn Museum.

Past winners of the Presents Booth Prize include SARAI Gallery (SARADIPOUR) (Tehran) for its presentation of Moslem Khezri in 2021; Upfor (Portland) for its exhibition of work by Julie Green in 2020; Charlie James Gallery’s (Los Angeles) presentation of Sadie Barnette in 2019; blank projects (Cape Town), who exhibited Igshaan Adams and Cinga Samson in 2018; and Mariane Ibrahim (Chicago, Paris), who exhibited Zohra Opoku in 2017.

SAUER ARTIST PRIZE

This year, The Armory Show has partnered with Sauer on the first ever prize awarded to an artist in the Focus section. The Sauer Artist Prize was awarded to Claudia Peña Salinas presented by Curro (Guadalajara) and Embajada (San Juan) in the Focus section. The debut prize of $10,000 is awarded to an artist of excellence presented within the section. Jurors for the prize include Stephanie Wenk, Creative Director of Sauer; João Paulo Siqueira Lopes, Founder of Art Consulting Tool; and Rodrigo Moura, Curator at El Museo del Barrio.

The 2022 Focus section is curated by Carla Acevedo-Yates, Marilyn and Larry Fields Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Chicago. Titled Landscape Undone, the section is dedicated to solo- and dual-artist presentations that examine the intersectionality of issues surrounding the environment, focusing on personal and political climates as they interact with race and gender.