The scene outside the Armory show in 2008, at Pier 94, along the Hudson River.

With the 2012 Armory Show a little more than half a year away, organizers announced today that the fair will feature a special Armory Focus section devoted to about 20 galleries from the Nordic countries of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. Jacob Fabricius, the director of Sweden's Malmö Konsthall, will be at the helm of the special section.

The Armory, which was started in 1994 as the Gramercy International Art Fair, attracts more than 200 international modern and contemporary galleries to Piers 92 and 94 along the Hudson each year, and its 2012 edition will run March 8-11.

Next year, the Armory is facing new competition from the London-based Frieze Art Fair, which announced that it will host a fair on Randall's Island in May, ending years of rumors that it planned a New York fair.

The Focus section was inaugurated at the 2010 fair, at which the galleries of Berlin were the featured guests. Last year, Latin American shops got the nod.

In a statement, Armory director Katelijne De Backer said that this year's Focus section was based on "our conviction that the vitality of the art community in the Nordic region has not yet been fully recognized."