After five years at her post, Expo Chicago deputy director Nicole Berry is heading to New York. She will oversee VIP and visitor relations for the Armory Show, and will begin serving in the post in October.
Berry started out in the contemporary art department at Sotheby’s in London, after which she worked worked in New York City at Vivian Horan Fine Art and James Goodman Gallery, followed by a stint as director at Nathan A. Bernstein Gallery.
A visitor checks out a painting by Sean Landers at Galerie Rodolphe Janssen on Pier 94 at the Armory Show 2016. Photo BFA, courtesy the Armory Show 2016.
Ben Genocchio, director of the Armory Show art fair (and former artnet News editor in chief), took over the fair at the end of 2015. He has moved to modernize in several ways, including softening the boundary between modern and contemporary dealers, introducing large-scale installations and performances, and scrapping a section devoted to geographic regions.
Berry will be responsible for hunting down new collectors in places as far-flung as Los Angeles and São Paulo, and will work to expand the fair’s curated initiatives, which, in 2017, will see projects by Los Angeles County Museum of Art associate curator Jarrett Gregory and former Andy Warhol Museum director (and now Sotheby’s senior vice president) Eric Shiner.
“We are thrilled to welcome Nicole to our expanding team,” said Genocchio in a press release. “She brings a wealth of talent and experience that will further develop The Armory Show as a powerful platform for leading international galleries and collectors alike, further cementing our place as America’s preeminent art fair.”
A visitor checks out work by Kay Hassan at Jack Shainman’s booth at the Armory Show 2016, Photo Teddy Wolff, courtesy the Armory Show.
Berry says in a statement that she is “delighted to return to New York, the epicenter of the art world.”
Taking place in early March on two piers on the Hudson River, the Armory Show draws a crowd of about 65,000 annually.