The Armory Off-Site 2024

The fourth iteration of Armory Off-Site presents public artworks spanning from performances and activations across New York City to large-scale sculptures at the US Open.

Discover Armory Off-Site, the fourth edition of The Armory Show's public art program, which brings performance works, site-specific installations, and large-scale sculptures to locations across New York City. In addition to partnering for the third time with the United States Tennis Association (USTA) to present four large-scale sculptures at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center during the US Open, The Armory Show is partnering with exhibiting galleries, non-profits, and city organizations.

This sculpture, titled Runner, debuted in The Best Part About Us, Tomokazu Matsuyama’s 2022 solo exhibition at Kavi Gupta gallery in Chicago. The form is highly abstracted, offering not so much a narrative expression of a runner, but rather a poetic incarnation of certain ideas about the function and cultural meaning of running as part of human culture. Viewed from certain angles, the sculpture reveals aspects of a human form, such as a head, arms, and feet that don a pair of athletic shoes. Other aspects of the form are intended to convey movement and action. Matsuyama’s sculptural practice is informed by his process of questioning how his imagery might be experienced by viewers in three-dimensional space. He contemplates the total optical experience of his paintings and the logical relationships of the formal elements within them, creating mirrored forms and patterns that serve as an optical metaphor for his vision of cultural exchange and influence. The effect event extends beyond the piece, as its surfaces will take on the colors of its environment.