Nordic countries provide the special Armory Focus in its third edition this year.  A Nordic Lounge at Pier 94 will feature 19 galleries from Helsinki,Copenhagen, Stockholm, Osla, Malmö, and Reykjavik while Armory Performance will include A Symphonic Poem about the Financial Situation in Iceland from Örn Alexander Ámundason, Performed by Metropolis Ensemble on Wednesday afternoon at the Wall Street Journal Media Lounge.

Elsewhere on Pier 94: Leon Golub’s Transparency, an installation created from works from an early 1990s series by the late artist, will feature at Ronald Feldman Booth 824.  CRG survey small paintings by LA-based Tomory Dodge at Booth 811.  On Stellar Rays has Clifford Owens at Both 521 and Horton Gallery has Wallace Whitney at Book 530.  Edward Tyler Nahem debuts new work from Andres Serrano at Booth 604.  Josée Bienvenu has a solo spot for Guatemala City-based Dario Escobar at Booth 526.  Winkleman, in their first presentation at the Armory Show, are devoting their booth, 536, to a solo spot for gallery artist Jennifer Dalton.

Uptown at the ever-confusing show at the Armory that isn’t the Armory Show, The Art Show at the Park Avenue Armory, P.P.O.W. presents important historic work in Fleshing out the Grid: David Wojnarowicz and Hunter Reynolds.  The Art Show tends to feature more blue chip historic materials than the Armory: Peter Freeman has prints, paintings and a photograph by James Ensor, for instance, while Philadelphia’s Locks Gallery Jennifer Bartlett’s paintings on baked enamel steel plates from the early 1970s until last year. Philip Pearlstein is the focus of a solo display there at Betty Cuningham Gallery

Some galleries of course bridge the divide and show at both.  Nicole Klagsbrun, for instance, has Xaviera Simmons at the Art Show at the Armory and Patrick Jackso at the The Armory Show at the piers, at Book 532, Pier 94.

And just to clarify (or perhaps intensify) the historic confusion, Fountains Art Fair takes place at the 69th Regiment Armory at 68 Lexington Ave, at 25th Street, the locale of the historic 1913 Armory Show from which the whole jamboree takes its name.  Bob Clyatt shows new sculpture at Lambert Fine Arts while Dacia Gallery features Tania Marmolejo among others.

Many arts organizations think beyond the box of any fair location.  Art Middle East, for instance, presents Amir Baradaran’s augmented reality installation, SamovAR and “The Tempest in the Teahouse” at 10 Downing Street on March 10 from 6-8 pm.

Neighborhoods entice visitors on themed days. The Lower East Side has its Armory Arts Week Day on Sunday March 7, featuring on the hour guided tours of the neighborhood leaving from the New Museum from noon to 3pm.  Saturday sees Soho Night: The Phaidon Store, for instance, at 83 Wooster, previews their newest collectors edition from Pawel Althamer.  And on March 10th it’s Brooklyn Armory Night in Williamsburg where selected Parker’s Box artists will project videos at local bars Banter’s, Clem’s and Iona, amongst them John Bjerklie’s Do Not Be Afraid, 2006.

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Stealing a march on the Armory in an early attack of fair fever, Studio Zürcher launches Salon Zürcher Monday night, February 28, in a show that transforms their Bleecker Street premises into a showcase for seven downtown and Brooklyn galleries, Zürcher themselves being one of them.  In view of the size and range of fairs in the offing, this is perhaps a homeopathic dose of the overdose to come

The gallery has been chopped up into booths, handsomely fitted with what are rather sturdy looking temporary walls for a fair.  Zürcher hosts six renowned galleries from the Lower East Side and Williamsburg, some of whom were pioneers of their respective neighborhoods.  It is a way for the New York satellite of the prominent Paris gallery to acknowledge peers among what could be called the “indie” dealers of the offbeat locales.  The idea of proprietors Bernard and Gwenolee Zürcher is that harried visitors to New York for the fairs week will not have time, but will have the desire, to sample the wonders of the Lower East Side and Brooklyn.

Zürcher’s guests are Feature, Inc.; The Journal Gallery; Stephan Stoyanov Gallery; the Proposition; Parker’s Box; and Audio Visual Arts.  The show opens Monday night, 5-8, and might well qualify as first off the mark in Armory Week.

Until March 6, 33 Bleecker Street, between Lafayette Street and Bowery, New York City, 212 777 0790

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