Jane Sutton gives her Armory diary on ArtForum.com:

There’s no denying that Independent is casting formidable weight for a sophomore fair. This year there was less exposed brick (Maureen Paley managed to pull off another show-stopping booth, claiming one of the walls for a massive David Salle) and a cleaner feel, no doubt heightened by the presence of galleries like Sprüth Magers, Stuart Shave/Modern Art, Bortolami, and Gavin Brown. It all gave the impression of a much older fair. “There’s always a car sculpture, isn’t there?” artist Peter Coffinremarked, reminiscing over Duncan Campbell’s DeLorean project last year for Artists Space, before the absurdity of the word “always” sunk in.

While the opening was listed as starting at 4 PM, I snuck in at 2, only to find the place had been bustling since noon, making me reexamine Jeppe Hein’s neon aphorism—“Why are you here and not somewhere else?”—crowning Johann Koenig’s booth. The VIPish crowd seemed relaxed in the open format, and clusters formed around the John Smith videos at Wallspace and Eftihis Patsourakis’s collection of hijacked Athenian welcome mats at Rodeo.

Jane Champions (Scene&Herd/ArtForum.com)