The Armory Show returned to the Javits Center in Manhattan this year looking much like its recent editions — and, in the view of one critic who toured the fair, that is not a compliment.

"I wish I could tell you that the Armory Show this year was radically different or better than recent editions at the Javits Center in Manhattan, but it was the same melange of dreadful hotel-lobby art next to countless inoffensive works that 'explore identity and memory' with only a slim minority of memorable standouts," the reviewer wrote, summing up the fair in a single pointed sentence.

Many of those standouts, the review noted, were concentrated in the Focus section, which this year dedicated itself to art from the Caribbean. María Elena Ortiz of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth curated the section, and the reviewer singled her out as "phenomenal."

The mood on the floor matched the work, and not in a good way. Dealers were "wheeling and dealing as usual," but the fair itself "seemed awfully quiet and downcast" — so subdued, the reviewer observed, that the financial sector trade show running one floor below, "same thing minus the art," felt "like a riot in comparison."

The photographs from the fairgrounds tell a more granular story than the one-sentence verdict suggests. The Focus section anchored by Ortiz produced a strong crop of named works: Lucia Hierro's Nuestra Silla (Our Chair) (2026), Bony Ramirez's La Carta (2026), Manuel Mathieu's Shrine (2025), and Sandra Brewster's Make Trouble (2024) all appeared in the section, alongside the Spinello Projects booth.

Elsewhere on the floor, the reviewer's camera caught Lisu Vega's A Momentary Whole (2025), Kaloki Nyamai's Tusukane (2023), and Zenobia Lee's Banana Leaves et Los Rios (2026). Sonya Clark's Edifice & Mortar (2018), Tamara Kostianovsky's sculptural gutted birds, Rosalind Tallmadge's Palingenesis (2026), Michelle Im's The Auctioneer (2026), and a cloudy sky work by Mike and Doug Starn (2026) rounded out the documented offerings. A painting by Rebecca Ness earned a simple caption: "Good one."

One photograph from the aisles carried its own laconic assessment: "A pretty quiet fair this year."

The contrast between the curated section and the main floor points to the underlying question. Where the general offerings produced what the reviewer called hotel-lobby art and inoffensive meditations on identity and memory, the Caribbean-focused Focus section — with Ortiz's curatorial hand and galleries such as Spinello Projects — delivered the works visitors might actually remember.

Whether the fair's organizers take that imbalance as a prompt for a sharper editorial identity in future editions, or continue with the current formula, will shape what a visit to the Javits Center feels like next September.