FORGOTTEN LANDS Guide to the Caribbean at The Armory Show 2026

Welcome to our guide to Caribbean artists at The Armory Show 2026, where to find them, who represents them, and which of them are FORGOTTEN LANDS alum.

For the first time the Caribbean will anchor both the Focus and Platform sections of the fair. With the American South as last year's theme, this also marks the second year in a row that director Kyla McMillan has built around a single region instead of a concept. McMillan points to geography as the reason, citing that the Caribbean connects much of the Americas, stretching from the southern edge of North America through Central America and the islands to South America's northern coast. As she put it, the region's throughlines matter for a fair rooted in New York, a city that diaspora itself shaped while still feeling regional.

Eleven FORGOTTEN LANDS artists are showing this year. Look out for Manuel Mathieu (V08), Jesús Hilario-Reyes (V07), Cornelius Tulloch (V07), Bony Ramirez (V06), Simon Benjamin (V06), Vanessa Selk | Tout-Monde Foundation (V06), Hew Locke (V05), Sandra Brewster (V05), Ania Freer (V04), Lizania Cruz (V04), and Kiván Quiñones Beltrán (V04). 

Public hours are Friday 11 AM to 6 PM, Saturday 11 AM to 7 PM, and Sunday 11 AM to 6 PM, with the last entry 30 minutes before close (plan your visit). 


Focus

Focus is the fair's room for a single idea, worked through one or two artists at a time rather than a gallery's whole program, each booth showing a solo or dual-artist presentation instead of a full roster.

This year, curated by María Elena Ortiz of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, it's eighteen galleries deep, from Bogotá to Nassau to Santo Domingo to London, built around how the Caribbean has long been a meeting point for communities and a foundation for contemporary art.

Focus booth numbers start with F:


Platform

Platform is where The Armory Show takes its biggest swings. It is the fair’s large-scale, non-commercial presentation, newly commissioned and curated each year since 2017, and often where visitors encounter its most memorable installations.

This year, Platform is led by Jovanna Venegas of SculptureCenter under the title Passages and Thresholds. For the first time, the presentation turns this stage toward the Caribbean, bringing together sculpture and installation that considers the region through resilience, self-determination, and the ways architecture and material carry technology forward.

Find Platform at the center of the fair, see artist names with gallery and booth number:


Armory Sculpture & Not-For-Profit Spotlight

Manuel Mathieu 🇭🇹 shows the olfactory installation Shhrine (2025), made with perfumer Juliette Karagueuzoglou. Rafael Ferrer 🇵🇷 shows Geographic Avenger Beached (1974 to 2026), which looks at the relationship between the US and Puerto Rico. Sonya Clark 🇯🇲🇹🇹🇺🇸 shows Edifice & Mortar (2018). All three sit in Armory Sculpture where large-scale work is placed out on the floor rather than tucked into a booth.

Stop by the Armory Spotlight Not-For-Profit El Museo del Barrio booth where textile by María Lucía Varona Borges’ 🇵🇷 is open to everyone via four workstations and you are welcome to add or unpick a stitch to leave your mark.


Programs

Tavares Strachan 🇧🇸, Marian Goodman Gallery (Booth 102). Special Blue: Act I is a live performance in which two performers interact with the booth's self-playing piano, then move the piece out into the fair's open floor. Each performance lasts eight to ten minutes, and it's worth catching more than once since the piece changes each time.

Thursday, September 24 at 11 AM, 1 PM, 3 PM, and 5 PM
Friday, September 25 at 12 PM, 2 PM, and 4 PM

Armory After Hours marks the first time the fair has hosted this event. Presented by TodayTix, it gives ticket holders the chance to explore the fair after hours, along with a processional performance led by DJ and Creative Producer Adam "Foreigner" Cooper 🇹🇹 and a live ensemble of percussionists. Inspired by Caribbean carnival, steel pan floats, and mas bands, the procession moves through the fair, blending Afro-Caribbean percussion with a live DJ set, before ending in Platform for a larger celebration. This is a separate ticket from general admission, so if you're planning to attend both the daytime fair and the evening event, you'll need two tickets.

Friday, September 25, from 7 to 9 PM.


Armory Live features two conversations pairing this year's curators with artists from their sections.

  • In Conversation: Passages and Thresholds: Platform curator Jovanna Venegas sits down with Platform artists Gaëlle Choisne 🇭🇹, Jesús Hilario-Reyes 🇩🇴🇵🇷, and Zenobia Lee 🇯🇲. Their practices trace how the Caribbean's nexus flows outward, following people, cultures, and traditions across the Gulf into a reimagined sense of place. 

  • In Conversation: Raw Alchemy: Focus curator María Elena Ortiz sits down with Focus artists Sofía del Mar Collins 🇵🇷, Kiván Quiñones Beltrán 🇵🇷, Yanira Collado 🇩🇴, and Manuel Mathieu 🇭🇹.

  • Saturday, September 26 at 2 PM.

María Magdalena Campos-Pons 🇨🇺 presents in the Armory Live Theater. Together with her partner and collaborator KaMag, Interweaves is a performance that reworks a piece they first presented last year at London's National Portrait Gallery. The piece moves between tonal language and poetic reflection, holding protest and devotion side by side.

Sunday, September 27 at 2 PM.

Prizes to Watch

The Armory Show turns 32 this year, and marks the occasion by handing out its first-ever acquisition prizes. Two of the four prizes on offer are brand new, and winners are announced during the fair.

PAMM Acquisition Prize ($20,000). New this year. Pérez Art Museum Miami buys work by a Focus artist for its permanent collection and for the Green Family Foundation Caribbean Cultural Institute, the museum's research and exhibition arm dedicated to Caribbean art.

Delfina Foundation Artist Residency Prize. A twelve-week residency in London for a Focus artist of Caribbean descent. It sits alongside a separate, larger residency program the Delfina Foundation just launched with backing from Miami collectors Jorge and Darlene Pérez, aimed at Latin American and Caribbean artists broadly, so 2026 marks a real deepening of that relationship.

Pommery Prize ($10,000). Backed by the champagne house, and going on six years running. Past winners get their work shown in Pommery's own cellars in Reims, France. This year it goes to a Platform artist.

Sauer Artist Prize ($10,000). Sauer, the Brazilian jewelry house founded by French immigrant Jules Sauer in 1941, funds this prize. Now in its third year at the fair, the prize goes to a Focus artist.

What artists are on your Armory radar this year? Who do you think will make the prize list? Tell us, or better yet, tell them! Tag @forgottenlands.art with who you're watching.

Going to miss the fair? The Armory Show's online viewing room stays open through October 4.

Cory Bishop