Kate Taylor reports from the opening of the Armory Show this afternoon:
The Dow closed up 150 points, and the mood four and a half hours into the Armory Show is tentatively positive. “There are great collectors here,” Lucy Mitchell-Innes told me, while adding that “sales are a bit hesitant,” with mostly a lot of reserves so far.
Sean Kelly said he had made some sales. “It’s a different market: It’s not the kind of hysterical, over-priced market it was, but it feels very solid and very real.”
Meanwhile, Glenn Lowry, the director of the Museum of Modern Art, which is benefiting from tonight’s preview, was walking around looking pleased with the turnout.
Don and Mera Rubell also put a positive spin on the market. They said they had already made a purchases and hoped to buy another piece by the same artist before the evening was out.
Mr. Rubell compared collectors to “addicts who don’t stop buying heroin” just because there’s a recession,” while Mrs, Rubell said that, even now that they’re poorer, people “still love looking at art.”