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ART FOCUS - September Art Fairs and Exhibits

The art world is ramping up, as it usually does in the fall, with exceptional shows. We are highlighting a few gallery exhibitions of note happening here in Los Angeles, alongside a couple of recent fairs we enjoyed.

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September Fairs

The Armory, New York

September 4th - 7th

A cornerstone of New York’s cultural landscape since 1994, The Armory Show opens New York’s fall art season by bringing the world’s leading international contemporary and modern art galleries to the Javits Center each year. The fair emphasizes thoughtful programming, elevated presentations, curatorial excellence, meaningful institutional partnerships, and engaging public art activations.

The Armory Show at the Javits Center in New York, 2025

The fair, which opened with its VIP day September 4th, hosted more than 230 exhibitors from 35 countries in New York’s Javits Center. Some 50,000 visitors attended overall. A buzzy atmosphere throughout was fueled by bold curatorial gambits, especially at the numerous booths in the fair’s Presents section dedicated to solo or dual artist presentations from emerging galleries.


Luis de Jesus, Evita Tezeno, The Armory Show, 2025, Booth 419, installation view


Nazarian / Curcio booth and Summer Wheat’s Camouflage, acrylic and gouache on aluminum mesh in the back

“A really good indicator of the general optimism in the air is the strength of the presentations that exhibitors have brought to the fair this year,” said Kyla McMillan, director of The Armory Show.


Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, Tomás Saraceno, Foam SB114/47p and Olafur Eliasson, The uncertain sun

Installation view of Patel Brown’s booth, exhibiting Alexa Kumiko Hatanaka at The Armory Show, 2025

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Untitled Art, Houston

September 19th - 21st

Untitled Art, boutique invitational fairs, have been favorites of ours for many years now. Untitled, Houston debuted from September 19 to 21, 2025 at the George R. Brown Convention Center. The inaugural edition of Untitled Art, Houston, though half the size of its Miami Beach counterpart with 88 participating galleries, was a buzz, with robust sales, strong attendance, and a commitment from local collectors.

Clare Rojas, Swan Mother, 2022. Presented as a Special Project by Jessica Silverman

For its part, Texas has a rich history in the art world, with Donald Judd’s compound in Marfa and strong museums and institutions spread across Fort Worth, Austin, San Antonio, and Dallas. Houston, in particular, is home to a number of institutions like the Menil Collection, which oversees the Rothko Chapel and the Cy Twombly Gallery, and the Museum of Fine Arts Houston.

Installation view of Diane Rosenstein Gallery in Booth at Untitled Houston, 2025
Though it’s hard to beat the critical mass in large city centers like New York and Miami, there are still many collectors outside those areas and diversifying among cities like Aspen, Houston, Dallas, and Seattle is important as the fair model and market changes.


Michael Kohn Gallery was highlighting stunning paintings by Nir Hod. His recent series draws upon personal memory and traumatic historical events to elicit subtle tensions between the viewer’s expectations and the material reality of the painting surface. Hod’s notable canvases present a masterful play between the profoundly illusionistic depth of the chromed, mirror-like surface that reflects the viewer and their surroundings.

Nir Hod, Nothing is more narcotic than the past, 2025, Oil under and on top of chromed canvas with patina, 72 x 53 inches, and Nir Hod, The Life We Left Behind, 2023, Oil paint, chromed and patina on canvas, 90 x 63 inches
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Los Angeles Gallery Exhibits



David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles

Sam Gilliam

September 13th - October 11th

David Kordansky Gallery is presenting Sam Gilliam: Constructions in Color, 1978–1981, an exhibition focused on small-scale works produced by the artist during these years. Often featuring handmade paper, watercolor, and collage, these works found Gilliam employing compositional strategies he had developed since the 1960s to chart new territory in spaces between painting and sculpture.

Small works by Sam Gilliam will be on display at David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles

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Wilding Crane Gallery, Los Angeles

Polly Borland - Blobs and Bod

September 13th - October 25th

Wilding Cran Gallery is presenting Blobs and Bod, an exhibition of recent sculptural works by renowned photographer and multimedia artist Polly Borland. Known for her psychologically charged portraiture and documentary photography, Borland’s latest series marks a shift into sculptural form: one that continues her exploration of the human body as a site of discomfort, vulnerability, and transformation.

Small works by Sam Gilliam will be on display at David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles

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Nazarian / Curcio, Los Angeles

Annie Lapin - Fragile Familiar

September 13th - October 25th

This solo exhibition will show new paintings by Los Angeles-based artist Annie Lapin, offering a deeply personal homage to the landscape of Southern California - a terrain shaped as much by light and memory as by earth and sky.


Drawing on her long-standing interest in visual perception, art history, and the natural world, Lapin paints the terrains she knows intimately: sun-washed hillsides, desert plateaus, tangled brush, vast urban spaces, and endless skies rendered in radiant layers of color and form. Known for her genre-bending approach, Lapin seamlessly blends representation and abstraction. Photographic blurs merge with painterly marks, while skyscapes dissolve into raw canvas or bloom into hyperreal color.

Arrangement (Sundown Vapors) , and Day Moon Shore//Through and Before the Immediate Trees

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