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"NEW YORK \u2014&amp;nbsp;Stephanie Roach, director of the&amp;nbsp;FLAG Art Foundation, was a few minutes late to meet me at the champagne bar, our agreed-upon meeting place on the&amp;nbsp;Armory Show\u2019s VIP preview day. \u201CIt\u2019s crowded!\u201D she wrote in a text message by way of warning. By \u201Ccrowded,\u201D she meant filled with people she knows \u2014 and there are a lot of those. As the director of the New York contemporary art foundation founded by&amp;nbsp;MSD Capital&amp;nbsp;managing partner&amp;nbsp;Glenn Fuhrman, Roach is tasked with mounting three to five curated shows a year at FLAG\u2019s project space on 25th street. During her five and a half years at the foundation, Roach has worked with galleries, artists, and museums from across the country, organizing shows that range from the political (Jane Hammond\u2019s \u201CFallen,\u201D an ongoing installation that collects handmade leaves inscribed with the name of a soldier killed in Iraq) to the playful (an exhibition called \u201CSize DOES Matter\u201D curated by&amp;nbsp;Shaquille O\u2019Neal). \u201CThere tends to be some pretense around seeing art, and we want FLAG to be an exciting space for viewers to see high-quality shows. We want to make it accessible to a diverse audience,\u201D she said.Art fair week is a workweek for Roach, as it is for any curator. \u201CWhen I go to a fair, I\u2019m always looking to see if there is an artist that is doing something different, or an artist we\u2019ve been following that has new work. I look at the fair as an opportunity to see what\u2019s out there, even if it is more in a commercial context than what we do,\u201D she said. Looking at an artwork, Roach tends to get very close (looking at an object-filled&amp;nbsp;Nick Cave&amp;nbsp;wall piece at&amp;nbsp;Jack Shainman Gallery, her nose almost touched its glittering leaves). \u201CI like to see craftsmanship,\u201D she explained. \u201CI know some people prefer to look at work from far away, but I like to see where all the lines begin and end.\u201DThroughout the week,&amp;nbsp;ARTINFO&amp;nbsp;shadowed Roach at various stops along her itinerary to get a sense of what the barrage of events is like for a curator on the job. Here, in her voice, is a diary of events from the first few days of Armory Week:Wednesday10:30 - I met with&amp;nbsp;Performa&amp;nbsp;to iron out the details of a benefit auction that we\u2019re hosting at FLAG in May, and then did some reading around the Web \u2014&amp;nbsp;Ed Winkleman\u2019s blog, Artlog, and a few other places \u2014 about the fairs and other events taking place this week.2:30 - On my way up to the Piers, I asked the cab to take Eighth Avenue so I could see&amp;nbsp;Josephine Meckseper\u2019s&amp;nbsp;Public Art Fund&amp;nbsp;work on the way up. She installed working oil pumps right near Times Square, and the installation looks amazing. We had a solo show with her last February.2:45 - I made it to the main fair, which was already buzzing with people. Immediately, I bumped into the&amp;nbsp;Warhol Foundation&amp;nbsp;director&amp;nbsp;Joel Wachs, who seemed to echo the sentiments of many at the fair by quoting&amp;nbsp;Jenny Holzer: \u201CProtect me from what I want.\u201D Artist&amp;nbsp;Patricia Cronin&amp;nbsp;recommended that I see the Holzer works at&amp;nbsp;Spruth Magers. Then I ran into&amp;nbsp;Paddle8\u2019s&amp;nbsp;Andrea Hill, and we walked through&amp;nbsp;Marianne Boesky\u2019s booth together, enjoying&amp;nbsp;Anthony Pearson\u2019s&amp;nbsp;sculptures. We also saw an interesting installation and detailed drawings by&amp;nbsp;Eric Yahnker&amp;nbsp;at&amp;nbsp;Ambach &amp;amp; Rice.3:30 - Continuing my walk, I visited the \u201Csolo projects lounge,\u201D where emerging galleries mounted solo booths.&amp;nbsp;Dario Escobar&amp;nbsp;at&amp;nbsp;Josee Bienvenu&amp;nbsp;and&amp;nbsp;Jennifer Dalton&amp;nbsp;at&amp;nbsp;Winkleman Gallery&amp;nbsp;were some of my favorites. Jennifer had a solo show at FLAG in Summer 2010. I loved her candy piece at the Armory \u2014 it mounted a cube full of candy on a pedestal, and visitors could use tongs to reach in and grab a piece. The wrappers had messages like, \u201CI think money corrupts except when I have some,\u201D \u201CArt is a gift but working for free is exhausting, \u201D and \u201CI hate elitism but I distrust mainstream tastes.\u201D There was a fourth, too, but we couldn\u2019t find it.4:00 - Dropped by the&amp;nbsp;Ingleby Gallery&amp;nbsp;booth. We have a solo exhibition of their artist,&amp;nbsp;Richard Forster, on at FLAG right now. Their booth looks wonderful. I particularly liked the work of&amp;nbsp;Harland Miller, whose watercolor of a book cover stating \u201CYou Can Rely on Me, I\u2019ll Always Let You Down\u201D is not only witty but has workmanship, and reminds me a bit of&amp;nbsp;Steve Wolfe.4:10 - I bumped into&amp;nbsp;Jewish Museum&amp;nbsp;director&amp;nbsp;Claudia Gould, who told me that the&amp;nbsp;Mona Hatoum&amp;nbsp;at&amp;nbsp;Continua&amp;nbsp;and&amp;nbsp;Nick Cave&amp;nbsp;at Jack&amp;nbsp;Shainman&amp;nbsp;were not to be missed. We\u2019re working on an exhibition focusing on floor works at FLAG, and I was interested to see Mona\u2019s pieces, since she has done some&amp;nbsp;Carl Andre-esque floor sculptures in the past.4:30 - I checked out work by&amp;nbsp;Anthony Goicolea&amp;nbsp;at&amp;nbsp;Galeria Senda from Barcelona,&amp;nbsp;where I used to work six years ago.&amp;nbsp;Ron Mandos&amp;nbsp;in Amsterdam had more work by Goicolea \u2014 complex drawings on mylar combining nature and anatomy that are both haunting and engaging. &amp;nbsp;5:15 - Thankfully, I leave the Armory just as it started to get swarmed by fairgoers.6:00 - I went to the&amp;nbsp;Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania's&amp;nbsp;winter salon, which is a discussion held every year for members of the board and donors. (I joined as a student board member, a position&amp;nbsp;Claudia Gould&amp;nbsp;revived while she worked there and I was still in college.) This year, we discussed the&amp;nbsp;Whitney Biennial&amp;nbsp;at the apartment of a private collection on the Upper East Side. I loved talking to senior curator&amp;nbsp;Ingrid Schaffner, and also listening to how forthright the discussion was. One of the collectors said, \u201CI didn't really understand some of the works in the biennial,\u201D and they had a real dialogue about why. The collection focuses on photography, and they have some great works by&amp;nbsp;Cindy Sherman,&amp;nbsp;Rineke Dijkstra,&amp;nbsp;and&amp;nbsp;Elizabeth Peyton.7:00 - I stopped by&amp;nbsp;ADAA, which was nice and quiet, so I could absorb the work. Then I met my friend&amp;nbsp;Daniel Lechner, who works at&amp;nbsp;Cheim &amp;amp; Read, for dinner at&amp;nbsp;Monkey Bar.10:00 - The two of us headed to&amp;nbsp;MoMA\u2019s Armory Week kickoff party. There was a fun art chic group of people, and walking through the contemporary section, I particularly enjoyed the&amp;nbsp;Felix Gonzalez-Torres&amp;nbsp; Placebo &amp;nbsp;candy work. By the end of this week, my purse will be filled with candies! The pineapple flavor is delicious, and reminds me of borrowing&amp;nbsp;\u201CUntitled\u201D (Rossmore II), 1991, for FLAG\u2019s show \u201CFloating a Boulder: Works by&amp;nbsp;Jim Hodges&amp;nbsp;and Felix Gonzalez-Torres.\u201D To manifest the work at FLAG, Jim and I worked with the&amp;nbsp;Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation&amp;nbsp;and ended up \u201Ccommissioning\u201D brand new candy to be made for the piece. We sampled a variety of green apple candies and eventually ended up ordering original pieces from a place in Texas, taking the color from one candy, the shape from another, and the flavor from another. It was such an exciting experience.Thursday10:30 a.m. - I went to the press preview of&amp;nbsp;Moving Image, for which I served on the curatorial committee. There\u2019s real range of emerging and established artists in the fair, but I was particularly struck by specific works that addressed the female experience.&amp;nbsp;Kate Gilmore\u2019s \u201CBuilt to Burst\u201D depicted a woman smashing vases of paint wearing a dress, which succeeded in creating tension between her appearance and unexpectedly aggressive actions.&amp;nbsp;Alex Prager\u2019s \u201CDespair\u201D showed a prototypical 1950s woman dealing with an emotional breakdown, with the lead played by&amp;nbsp;Bryce Dallas Howard. I also appreciated&amp;nbsp;Martha Wilson\u2019s \u201CI have become my own worst fear/deformation,\u201D which dealt with issues of vanity.12 p.m. - I returned to FLAG\u2019s offices to work out logistics for our event on Saturday. We\u2019re hosting the Coolhaus ice cream truck from 2 to 4 p.m. outside the gallery, giving away free ice cream to weary fairgoers and FLAG viewers.12:30 - I recapped what I\u2019d seen at the fair with FLAG\u2019s assistant director&amp;nbsp;Rebecca Streiman. We talked about which artists might be interesting to pursue for future exhibitions, particularly our summer exhibition of floor works.2:30 - Did a walk through of the&amp;nbsp;Independent&amp;nbsp;fair. I like it because the vibe is very fluid, it\u2019s got great \u201Cspaces\u201D rather than booths, and there is so much natural light. I\u2019m looking carefully for artists who might be of interest for the floor show.&amp;nbsp;Matthew Darbyshire&amp;nbsp;had great freestanding totems at&amp;nbsp;Herald Street.&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;4-5:45 - Finished up remaining emails, then ran home to change. Good thing I live close by!7:00 - Stopped by the Grey Area party to support my friend&amp;nbsp;Manish Vora, the genius behind Artlog and Grey Area. I love the concept of their VIP badges. Have a great conversation with&amp;nbsp;Panni&amp;nbsp;Malekzadeh, who made one of the badges, about what she\u2019s working on and her upcoming solo show.8:30 - Went with friends to the&amp;nbsp;Jewish Museum&amp;nbsp;preview of the&amp;nbsp;Kehinde Wiley&amp;nbsp;show and its Wind Up dance party. The works in Kehinde\u2019s series  The World Stage: Israel &amp;nbsp;are beautiful and ornate, and it's fascinating to see them along side Judaica from the museum\u2019s collection.10:00 - Grabbed a late bite at&amp;nbsp;ABV&amp;nbsp;on the Upper East Side.&amp;nbsp;[content:advertisement-center]"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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