Hyperallergic's Armory Week Dispatch: Buffalo Puppets, Leon Black's Museum Plan, and the Worst Venice Pavilions

Key facts

• The Armory Show's 2026 edition was described by Hyperallergic as "awfully quiet and downcast," with a financial sector trade show on the floor below seeming "like a riot in comparison."
• A herd of 40 life-sized buffalo puppets migrated through parts of New York City for "Return of the Buffalo: Tatanka Owe Akupi," Lakota for "buffalo trail home."
• Leon Black, a MoMA board member, plans to convert an iconic Manhattan property into a foundation displaying his estimated $5 billion art collection.
• Beijing-based artist Liu Wei returns to New York with new works for the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Genesis Facade Commission.
• French authorities apprehended two German men at the Louvre after they affixed two paintings to a wall in the room housing Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa."
• Christie's launched a pop culture division with auctions of music memorabilia, instruments, and film props.
• Documenta 16 artistic director Naomi Beckwith said some artists declined to participate over "Germany's position on the Gaza war" and concerns about artistic freedom.
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art will present the first major Felix Gonzalez-Torres exhibition in New York in over 30 years.
• El Museo del Barrio expressed regret for renting space to a conspiracy-filled conference on the 25th anniversary of 9/11.
• Photographer Tyler Mitchell won Crystal Bridges's $250K prize; the National Gallery of Art named a new head of American Art; Sharif Bey won the Spector Craft Prize; a Solange sculpture heads to the High Line.
• The New Museum on the Lower East Side has opened a major Arthur Jafa retrospective.
• The New York Art Book Fair held its 20th anniversary edition at MoMA PS1.