Seeing Red (and White)

A rendering of the installation of “Infinite Variety: Three Centuries of Red and White Quilts” at the Park Avenue Armory.A rendering of the installation of “Infinite Variety: Three Centuries of Red and White Quilts” at the Park Avenue Armory.

For six days only — March 25-30 — what promises to be an extraordinary exhibition will fill the Wade Thompson Drill Hall at the Park Avenue Armory. “Infinite Variety: Three Centuries of Red and White Quilts,” which was organized by the American Folk Art Museum, will present 650 red and white quilts — no two of which are alike — from the collection of Joanna S. Rose (who will donate 50 of them to the museum when the exhibition ends). The largest quilt exhibition ever mounted under one roof in New York City, it will fill the 55,000- square-foot drill hall to a height of 45 feet with a series of “rooms” defined by quilts that will be suspended on cardboard tubes. In the center of the installation, which was designed by the New York firm Thinc Design, a group of quilts will hang in a spiral formation that the designers liken to a tornado, above a circle of chairs that alludes to the social — and female-dominated — nature of quilting. Organized by Elizabeth V. Warren, a guest curator who is also a trustee of the museum, and Stacy C. Hollander, a senior curator at the museum, the exhibition will be free to the public and will include a cafe and shop. Even if you won’t be able to buy the quilts, the postcards should be terrific.