The Armory Show, after 16 years, has surpassed The Art Show to become the country’s leading fine art fair – an international institution, bringing artists, galleries, collectors, critics and curators from all over the world to New York City every March. Armory Arts Week is now in full-swing with too much to do but here are the major fairs and some other highlights. If you aren’t in New York City, I’ve gone to a LOT of trouble to add the links for each fair and auction site so you can still experience a TON of art online – for FREE – in your sweatpants! The parties are another thing altogether – why do you want to know about them if you aren’t invited? The Armory Show. 12th Ave at 55th St. March 6-9 (opening 3/5) 152 Exhibitors

It can be confusing because this show, the annual Art Show, organized by the Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA) is actually at The Armory uptown on Park Avenue, while the Armory Show is at the piers. It features curated solo, two-person, and thematic exhibitions by some of the nation’s leading art dealers. All ticket proceeds benefit the Henry Street Settlement, one of New York’s most effective social services agencies. It’s the very blue-chip, old-school money set – but they BUY! The Art Show, The Park Avenue Armory Park Ave. @ 67th St. March 5-9, 72 Exhibitors

Scope @ Skylight Studios/ Moynihan Station

To be honest, I’ve never been a huge fan, but in the last several years Scope has gotten more experimental in their programs, like the one in Miami during Art Basel last December, held for the first time on the beach in a tent. This year, crossing multiple creative disciplines and geographic boundaries, the New York edition will be held at Skylight studios in Moynihan Station, across from Madison Square Garden, which will become the new Penn Station. If you go, check out my new work with both Converge Gallery (Very Much So, left), as well as Fuchs Projects which is showing two new series that I just started.Scope, Skylight at Moynihan Station, 312 West 33rd Street, March 7-9, 67 Exhibitors

The Independent Art Fair takes place in the former Dia Art Foundation building and frees exhibitors from the confines of booths that most fairs feature. Rooted primarily in the Williamsburg art scene, it celebrates smaller, independent galleries and aims to re-define the art fair experience (something half the smaller fairs claim) from a more alternative and avant-garde position. Independent, Dia Center for the Arts, 548 West 22nd Street, March 7-9 (vernissage 3/6) 56 Exhibitors

Moderated by curator Alice Gray Stites, The Moving Image Art Fair will have a panel discussion on Saturday selling video art online, where Paddle8′s co-founder Aditya Julka will join other experts to explore how new media and commerce meet on the Internet. Preview it on ArtSy. Moving Image, 269 11th Avenue, March 6-9 (opening 3/6) 28 Exhibitors

The Old School on Mott Street is the site for the curator-driven Spring/Break Art Show. Works from the fair are available for auction on Paddle8, benefiting arts education program ProjectArt. My pal Sean Fader (the guy who dated 100+ guys and photographed them) is doing an performance piece called The Wishing Pelt, where you rub his chest hair and whisper your wish in his ear. Spring/Break, Old School, 233 Mott Street March 6-9 (preview 3/4) 34 Exhibitors

Sean Fader’s Wishing Pelt at Spring/Break

Volta is an invitational show of up and coming artists and their solo projects. They used to be in an awful office building on 34th Street but their new location is in a SoHo loft. With 98 “solo shows” this must be one gigantic loft. Volta, 82 Mercer Street March 7-9 (preview 3/6) 98 Exhibitors

Billed as an “alternative fair”, Fountain says it tries to “reinvent the art fair experience” but it’s an art fair with emerging artists, more affordable work and in the past, the results are mixed. But the mood is friendly and fun with a “we’re all in this together” vibe. Fountain, 69th Regiment Armory 68 Lexington Avenue, March 7-9 (preview 3/7) 66 Exhibitors

PLUS…
The Biennial is sometimes frustrating and and tedious. New York magazine’s art critic Jerry Saltz has this take on it (Top floor? Good. The rest? Not so good.) No matter, this Whitney Biennial, is the last to be presented in the museum’s uptown Breuer building. Next time it will be in their new Piano-designed space on The Highline. (One block from my front door, btw) Go – and then bitch about it. It’s a tradition.Whitney, 945 Madison Avenue @ 75th. (thru 5/25)

The Whitney Biennial 2014 (Sterling Ruby ceramics in the foreground)

It’s not an art fair but still a chance to see good work with an attached dollar amount. Philips has the reputation of being the hipster younger brother of the two old-school auction house, Christie’s and Sotheby’s. Here you’ll find flavor-of-the-month, Oscar Murillo, Wade Guyton and a nice blue figure by the late Keith Haring. Philips Auction House, Contemporary Art & Design Auction, March 6 7PM, 450 Park Avenue

Art blog Hyperallergic and Tumblr are presenting The Tumblr Art Symposium for art in Bushwick. As a bonus to the exhibitions featuring prominent artists who use Tumblr primarily as their medium, the event will also have drinks and dancing too. Virtual becomes physical. I like it. The Tumblr Art Symposium, 319 Scholes Street, Brooklyn, March 9th, 6pm-1am.

The Brucennial began in 2008 in the studio of The Bruce High Quality Foundation, a former weed growing operation next to the High Times Deliverance Church on the edge of Bushwick and Bed-Stuy under the JMZ. A hundred or so friends and friends of friends came over and they made themselves a Brucennial. For whatever reason, this is the last one and, once again, it’s right up the street from me, so I have no excuse NOT to check it out tomorrow. The Last Brucennial/ The Bruce High Quality Foundation, 847 Washington Street March 7- April 4