Armory

Since the 54th Annual Winter Antiques Show took up most of my day on Friday, I returned to my room on the 15th floor of the lovely Tudor Hotel on 42nd & 2nd Ave., only a short walk from Grand Central. For the record, it was one of my more comfortable stays in a NYC hotel, and the central location between the three antiques events of the weekend was ideal – especially since I prefer walking over cabs and subways.

Saturday was ‘Antiques at the Armory’, not to be confused with the previous day’s show – which was also held at an armory and had the word ‘winter’ in it. All events were linked by NYC’s ‘Americana Weekend’ and had shuttle buses running on the hour & half-hour between them.

This second armory seemed to have entire parades of camo-garbed military guys milling around outside & past the coat-check area, and after being passed by a guy in regular blue jeans, I got the impression that this was a slightly more casual show. This was confirmed by the jazz being piped in, as opposed to the classical music of the other event; both classy options, but I definitely prefer the jazz. The starting prices of the items here were in the hundreds of dollars, instead of the ten thousands. After traipsing through million-dollar armchairs for a full day, I felt like I could finally breathe easy and maybe even afford something if it really caught my eye. The prices would eventually reach into the tens of thousands of dollars, but it was rare. The size of the floor in general was also smaller and easier to navigate.

This event had a larger focus on American-made items of the last 200 years, instead of the international (and usually more expensive) antiques scene. The event almost immediately won me over, the vendors all friendly and the atmosphere more relaxed. When I saw a moving Erector Set light-up robot stepping away on a table, I fell in love. This was at Fred Giampietro’s booth, which stole the show (and the whole weekend) as far as ephemera and oddities were concerned. And I’m all about the oddities.

The dark sense of humor of the whole area fascinated me, from the taxidermied dog guarding the items, to the carved figure of legendary glutton Diamond Jim. The best item of the whole show was the human skull diorama – encased in glass and wreathed by waxy, pale flowers, accompanied by the phrase ‘Folly commonly punishes itself’. Not only would this be a perfect item for my imaginary study, but the story behind it and its origins have been lost, making it even eerier. Also in the booth was a glass dome of miniature boxing gloves arranged potpourri style, a Jack Lalane massage ball, an elephant skull, giant teeth, and a carved wooden cat head with a clock in its mouth. I could decorate my whole sad, creepy life with this stuff.

Another item that really stood out to me was at Jeffrey Henkel’s booth. While already sold, this large wooden chair looks like something directly out of Tolkien’s Lothlorien. A beautifully epic item that looks like it’s been carved out of a single tree, emphasizing the natural details and knots in the wood itself. I’ve never seen anything like it, but it remains tremendous and inspiring.

Imagine my delight at seeing a second ‘folk art’ robot made out of old coffee cans, a bit further on.

At Jim Hirscheimer’s booth, a set of 21 carnival knockdowns caught my eye – especially because these were high-priced antiques that were designed to have things thrown at them and be durable, but ultimately destructible. For antiques that often list ‘original paint’ or ‘original costume’ in their descriptions, these were surely repaired and re-repaired throughout their existence. I was curious if these ongoing repairs really had as much of an impact on the price of an item if the item was meant to be damaged. The same conundrum came to mind when observing a dartboard at another booth.

Alongside the continuing bevy of antique furniture, I also greatly enjoyed this show and the items that it presented – many of which can be seen in this gallery in our Community Section. With one more to go, I waited outside for the free shuttle van to the Metropolitan Pavilion on the other side of town, grateful to be off of my feet for a few minutes.

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My perception of culture (being almost entirely composed of Batman, sushi dives, forgotten LPs and the creation and history of all manner of fine arts), albeit diverse, has never breached that bizarre gulf between dollar store chic and ACTUAL chic – but I’ve managed to fool myself and everyone in my immediate vicinity well enough. Sure, I’ve meandered through the dusty hallways of indoor ‘antiques malls’ and found a thing or two that caught my eye, but there’s absolutely no comparison between that experience and the experience of tiptoeing between the displays at the 54th Annual Winter Antiques Show at the Park Avenue Armory, near the Hunter College main campus in NYC.

I say ‘tiptoe’ because any manner of more casual walking might result in a mis-step or a stumble that would cost the traipser upwards of a half million dollars. Just breathe too hard on that tapestry and spend the rest of your life paying for it.

In summation, the Show was the precise equivalent of a museum that you could buy – no more and no less. Well, maybe a little more, because you could touch anything that you pretended to be interested in buying without those uppity museum guards being all up in your face. Every fine work of art or historical, anthropological artifact that you’ve ever seen in a public museum had a similar counterpart that you could purchase and bring home to your private collection. There’s something fascinating about knowing the exact collectors’ value for an ancient Greek bust, or a chair that might look like absolutely nothing special to the casual viewer. Little did I know that chairs are actually pretty big business, and seeing so many in one place, in all forms of disrepair, began to reveal the diversity and cost of things that are designed to be in frequent close contact with your butt. Prices would reveal to me that the older the butts, the better. Imagine the value of things meant to lovingly cup even more appealing body parts.

One thing that emerged from the weekend was the revelation that all of the most valuable things, and the most tremendously beautiful, all had the common factor that they were made by hand, made by skilled craftsmen, and made using arts that are almost all lost to the advent of industrialization. Did the Industrial Revolution ruin craft? Did it somehow completely change the value, and meaning, of art itself, and did it redefine the idea of the artistic ‘product’? For every ancient Greek bust, there’s now another that can be cheaply mass produced with alarming accuracy by injecting plastics into a mold and cranking it out, and for a good handful of collectors and decorators who collect for aesthetics alone, it would hardly make a difference.

The distinction here is that the kind of collector who buys things at The Winter Antiques Show will only settle for the genuine artifact – so in their own ridiculously opulent way, they keep the value of the artist and his artifacts alive. I readily admit that I had moments of resentment as buyers casually wrote out $400,000 checks for fireplaces and chandeliers (and this is no exaggeration, but a recollection of an actual occurrence), as I struggle to keep my car together and repay my student loans, but this is also the class of people who can afford an endorse the arts that I try to create. If I weren’t an ‘artist’, I might just remain resentful – but there is a purpose for all things that I’m only now able to appreciate, however decadent. I came home wanting to make things – genuinely craft them using the patience and techniques of forgotten craftsmen. Yeah, even if someone wasn’t going to drop ninety thousand dollars on it.

Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to convince any of the wealthy couples to bring me home with them.

Each vendor, assembled from around the world, had a specialty – from medieval swords and armor, to period paintings and furnishings, and a few especially interesting areas that focused on tribal artifacts, from Eskimo to African. Of the weekend’s trio of shows that I attended, this was the largest and most expensively decorated, with a starting price of $10,000 on any given item (but often much, much more), and classical music piped in from a hidden speaker system. For anyone thinking of attending, ditch the jeans. The NYC elite are forever clad in funereal all-black, which is the only thing that them and I have in common. I was not made to feel unwelcomed, and was allowed to shoot photos at most of the sellers’ areas, but it was also very apparent that The Sale took precedence over any casual onlooker’s gawkings. If I was going to make a million dollar sale, I’d pretty much ignore everything else too.

Of my personal points of great interest (yours may differ), London’s Peter Finer was especially wonderful. Of course, seeing a Germanic sword taller than myself from across the showroom floor is enough to draw any nerd with hero fantasies in. The booth (though I hesitate to call any of these sturdy, fancy areas a word as classless as ‘booth’) also had dueling pistols given by Napoleon, cannons, armor, and amazing crossbows. I didn’t want to betray my ignorance by asking if they were still functional, but as an archer of poor-to-moderate skill, they captured my imagination. Intricate models of sailing ships also decorated the area.

The well-known Bauman Rare Books (from NYC) was also an interesting stop, and one of the first things to catch my eye was a book signed by Ayn Rand, which was selling for significantly more than my own copy. Books signed by A. A. Milne and Seuss made the biggest impression, and their library-like arrangement made me feel right at home.

Canada’s Donald Ellis Gallery featured a wide and well-displayed collection of Eskimo artwork and ceremonial masks (though politely declined posting prices for most of these items). As a one-time resident of Alaska, I looked for some kind of childhood emotional resonance, but while I didn’t find any, the items themselves were beautiful, and I’m almost positive that I recognized one from an old postcard in my collection. Kevin Conru featured an equally beautiful and artistically-displayed collection of African artifacts of a similar nature. All of these items I’ve mentioned can be seen in our Community Section, in galleries that will grow as I add more photographs. There are only about 500 to sort through and tag.
The other two antiques shows of the weekend each had a distinct feeling to them, mostly gauged by my levels of comfort with the other clientele and the average price of the items for sale. Needless to say, I favored the one where I actually spied two robots and a guy wearing a pair of jeans – though not all at once, else I might have fallen to my knees and wept. Stay tuned!

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