Armature is a grassroots, artist-run, art space that promotes and supports artists by providing access to free creative services and exhibition space, while involving the community of artists and non-artists, alike. Armature seeks to empower artists at early and/or critical stages in their creative lives. The cooperative aims to identify unestablished artists who are often part of a vulnerable cre
ative population, increasingly underemployed or unemployed, who risk losing their art or living space, who are often at risk of terminating their creative pursuits, and who do not have opportunities to exhibit their work. These scenarios are particularly common among self-taught artists and/or artists from poor neighborhoods, such as Bushwick, Brooklyn where Armature is located. Armature provides artists with advisory services, whether organizing an exhibition or group show, promotion, drafting creative statements, biographies, pricing works, and/or curating the show, all in a supportive and collaborative environment, while never charging a fee for anything. Simultaneously, the community (of both artists and non-artists) is invited to attend exhibits as well as participate in exhibition planning meetings where themes for open calls, for group shows, are identified. In this way, Armature intends to invest the community in art events, amplify the community’s voice, and to raise cultural awareness. Armature is meant to be the support from which artists can express themselves—sculpt, paint, and focus—and around which artists may build community. Armature was founded on the centennial of the 1913 International Exhibition of Modern Art Armory Show and aims to contribute to the Armory Show’s legacy of artists supporting artists and challenging conventions and stagnation. The organization of the Armory Show was a radical departure from other exhibitions by being organized by artists (the Association of American Painters and Sculptors) rather than the academy and invited artists from outside the academy to display their work. The Armory Show was also the first time Marcel Duchamp displayed his "Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2," which shocked the public and much of the creative community for its avant-garde reinterpretation of seeing—a scandalous painting in an era of historical scenes and landscapes.
