Now in its fifth edition, Frieze Los Angeles takes over the Santa Monica Airport’s airfield from February 29-March 3. The fair will feature over 95 galleries from around the world, as well as an exciting program of installations, collaborations and pop-ups from local favorites. With so much on, we asked art industry insiders what not to miss this year, from exhibitions to cocktail parties and more.
Jennifer Benz Joy, President & Managing Director, SUTTON
LA has become a mecca for contemporary art galleries in recent years and some of the year's best shows are on view during Frieze LA. We are thrilled to be supporting Perrotin as they open their first gallery in the city, in a landmark 1920s building that has been redesigned by Johnston Marklee. The inaugural show features paintings, sculptures and an installation by the Japanese artist Izumi Kato, who is having his first solo show on the West coast. His figures hover somewhere between the spiritual and mythical, the ancient and modern.
Izumi Kato, Untitled, 2023, oil on canvas. Photo by Kei Okano. Courtesy of the artist and Perrotin. © 2023 Izumi Kato.
I also highly recommend seeing Ana González's first solo show VERDES at Sean Kelly. Her exquisitely crafted textiles and Limoges sculptures depicting the destruction of the Colombian rainforest are both beautiful and moving, reminding us just how fragile the natural world is in our hands. Not far away are two outstanding shows by Sam Gilliam at David Kordansky and Marina Perez Simão at Pace - both masters of color. I'm also looking forward to visiting OMR's first pop up gallery outside of Mexico City. They are presenting a group show called Human Nature, featuring Doug Aitken, Pia Camil, Alicja Kwade and Eduardo Sarabia, among others.
Installation view of Ana González: VERDES at Sean Kelly, Los Angeles. January 20 – March 9, 2024. Photography: Brica Wilcox, Courtesy: Sean Kelly, New York/Los Angeles
Danielle Bias, Chief Communications Officer, The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA)
Frieze Week 2024 in Los Angeles unfolds as an impressive collection of exhibitions and performances echo across the city. I’m particularly drawn to these three standout experiences, each offering a distinct lens through which to view the complex tapestry of Los Angeles’ art scene. From the deeply personal to the boldly innovative, they promise to offer unforgettable experiences that resonate long after the week is over.
1. Commonwealth & Council “Borrowed Recipes” on view through March 2nd, 2024
I’m captivated by “Borrowed Recipes,” a compelling exhibition at Commonwealth & Council that intertwines the works of Anna Sew Hoy, Carmen Argote, David Alekhuogie, Eddie Rodolfo Aparicio, Jesse Chun, and Patricia Fernández. This exhibition is a celebration of inherited knowledge, the spiritual legacies that shape our identities, and the nuanced recipes that influence our perceptions and interactions with the world around us.
Photo by Paul Salveson, Installation view of “Borrowed Recipes” at Commonwealth & Council
2. Catherine Opie “harmony is fraught” at Regen Projects on view through March 3, 2024
Catherine Opie offers an intimate glimpse into the artist’s life and the city of Los Angeles itself. Featuring over sixty photographs that span three decades, this exhibition narrates a deeply personal and evolving story of Los Angeles. Opie’s work is a profound reflection on the intertwining of personal experiences with the broader societal and cultural landscape. Her ability to capture the essence of Los Angeles through such a personal lens is truly remarkable and not to be missed!
3. Sudan Archives Thursday, February 29, 2024, at 7:30 PM at the Hammer Museum
Frieze Music & Hammer Museum’s celebrate the fair’s opening with a presentation of Sudan Archives, a groundbreaking L.A.-based musician known whose unique sound defies genre constraints and celebrates the rich and diverse musical heritage of Los Angeles.
Liz Beaman, Sotheby’s Head of Southern California
Sotheby’s Los Angeles is thrilled to present the private selling exhibition ‘Damien Hirst; Forever & Always,’ showcasing a broad range of works by Britain’s most recognizable artist. The show opens on February 29th (and runs through March 29th) to coincide with ‘Frieze Week,’ when the art world converges to celebrate contemporary art and the exceptionally dynamic culture that has made Los Angeles an international hub for the arts. The works included in the exhibition reflect a profound contemplation of life, death, and the human condition. Hirst’s works create a palpable tension between beauty and mortality, chaos and order that command the viewer.
Damien Hirst Loyalty, from The Virtues
Sara Fitzmaurice, Founder & CEO, FITZ & CO
It’s always so exciting to have the art world come to my adopted hometown, and to celebrate all the cultural offerings we have here on the West Coast. The week began with Keith Rivers, Vajra Kingsley, and Director Jessica Berlanga Taylor hosting a fabulous brunch at Rivers’ private, art-filled residence to celebrate the University of California at San Diego’s Stuart Collection, of which he is on the Advisory Board.
As someone who is passionate about building bridges between the worlds of traditional and digital art, it was a pleasure to be included at the TRLabs luncheon, hosted by East West Bank and featuring a conversation with Michael Govan, CEO and Director of LACMA, Audrey Ou, CEO and Co-Founder of TRLab, and Yayoi Shionoiri of The Chris Burden Estate. They dove into Beyond Limits: The Unrealized Artworks of Chris Burden, a digi-verse interpretation of the artist’s unrealized projects.
Mary Ta hosts OMR at Casa Pentra to present Human Nature, a show curated by Esthella Provas that dives into questions relating to the human existence and our ever-evolving relationship with nature. The show opened this week and runs through March 23rd.
BMW’s Lounge at Frieze LA features "NOSTOKANA": BMW's i5 transformed into a dynamic canvas, inspired by 88-year-old South African artist Esther Mahlangu's art using BMW's color-changing E Ink technology. "NOSTOKANA" embodies innovation and artistry while paying homage to Esther Mahlangu's BMW Art Car #12 from 1991. Also not to be missed is BMW’s long-term partnership with Frieze in presenting Frieze Music. This year's event will take place at the Hammer Museum featuring Sudan Archives on Thursday, February 29th.
Lastly, don’t miss Michael Kohn Gallery’s William Brickel exhibition Was It Ever Fair before it closes on March 2nd.The gallery is also hosting a private studio visit with Lita Albuquerque, whose show opens at the gallery on August 17th. You’ll have to come back to LA to see it!
Michael Kohn Gallery’s William Brickel Exhibition, Was It Ever Fair
Elizabeth Morrocco, Deputy Director of Corporate Growth, The Cultivist
Guests are invited to join us for breakfast and an insightful conversation with Nancy Baker Cahill at The Peninsula Beverly Hills' Belvedere Terrace ahead of Frieze LA's VIP opening on February 29. Baker Cahill, a new media artist exploring power, selfhood, and embodied consciousness through shared immersive spaces, will unveil a site-specific commission at the hotel to coincide with the fair.
Nancy Baker Cahill is an award-winning interdisciplinary artist whose hybrid practice focuses on systemic power, consciousness, and the human body. She creates research-based immersive experiences, video installations, and conceptual blockchain projects rooted in the history of drawing. Her monumental augmented reality (AR) artworks extend and subvert the lineage of land art, often highlighting ecological imagination, civics, and a desire for more equitable futures. She is the Founder and Artistic Director of 4th Wall, a free, AR public art platform exploring site interventions, resistance, and inclusive creative expression.
Pernille Kjeldsen, Founder, PK PR & Branding
I'm excited to check out the Italian artist and architect, Vincenzo De Cotiis, and his first solo exhibition in LA at Carpenters Workshop Gallery. Crossing Over will open on February 28th from 6-8pm. Vincenzo is considered one of the pioneers of international contemporary collectible design, and this body of work is a continuation of the artist's investigation into urban environment imagery.
Vincenzo De Cotiis
I'd also suggest booking an appointment at gallery Maison Lune, who just opened the group show A Time Was Had: Is An Awakening, curated by Mashonda Tifrere and Art Genesis. The gallery in itself is beautiful, and the curation of the show goes hand in hand with the current interior at the gallery. Some of the exhibiting artists are Moral Turgeman, KidSuper Studios and Elizabeth Waggett.
Art Axcess, a gallery focused on bringing Ukrainian art to a global audience, is showing a group exhibition, Shadows of Us, at SLS Hotel Beverly Hills. It's a super powerful exhibition with emerging female Ukrainian artists, who explore both individual and shared experiences, offering insights into the country's path of enduring hardship and resilience.
At Frieze LA I would check out Sow & Taylor, one of my favorite LA galleries. They're presenting the LA-based artist Javier Ramirez in the Presents section.
Team BerlinRosen
Make Room Los Angeles is doing two exciting projects: at the fair, they're showing a solo large-scale sculptural installation by Yeni Mao, who's making a series of works that will be half-buried under debris. The works spring from research he's done into a group of tunnels on the Mexico/US border town of Mexicali that were inhabited in the early 20th century by Chinese migrants seeking refuge after facing persecution in the U.S. as well as in Mexico. In both countries, there were documented anti-Chinese activities and pogroms that terrorized Asian migrant workers. It'll be a very impressive stand and it's quite a rare thing to see dealers do solo booths, especially with sculpture, because they're financially risky.
The gallery is also launching an entirely new project space within the gallery’s footprint called Room where they're showing works by a range of interdisciplinary artists and designers not formally associated with the gallery’s program, including multimedia artist Terence Koh and photographer Jack Bool.
Anat Ebgi Gallery is presenting a booth dedicated to three artists (Jordan Nassar, Meeson Pae, and Gloria Klein) as a way to contextualize the latter artist's work. Klein, who was born in 1936 and died in 2021, was part of the Pattern and Decoration movement of the 1970s and created deeply intricate paintings and drawings that mimicked stitching patterns, with hundreds of small marks coming together to create a whole, geometric form. Her mission (similar to that of Nassar and Pae today) was to infuse social and political meaning into "geometric" art, so that it speaks to larger debates instead of looking insularly at art as its subject. Klein's work has mostly been excluded from prevailing narratives because she was a woman and a lesbian. Anat is working to revive interest in her career (which is similar to work Anat's doing for Faith Wilding, another under-known but very prolific artist of the same generation). Basically, the idea is to use contemporary art to point back to major but under-recognized precedents. Additionally, Anat Ebgi is hosting an opening night party for the launch of the virtual reality extension of VAMPIRE::MOTHER— a collaborative show with Vortic Curated— on Tuesday, February 27 from 5-7pm at the Wilshire space.
Vampire::Mother, 2024, Installation view
VAMPIRE::MOTHER presents new works by 15 contemporary artists responding to and pulling apart the imposed and oversimplified stereotypes affiliated with women/femmes. The featured artists include Anat Ebgi artists such as Tammi Campbell, Jane Margarette and Jessica Taylor Bellamy— alongside other feminist art icons like Marilyn Minter and Laurie Simmons. In addition to the “IRL” show, a digital and VR replica will be available to view both at the gallery space and on vortic.art. The virtual experience has been developed with curator Jasmine Wahi and three of the artists, Bhasha Chakrabarti, Laurie Simmons and Shoshanna Weinberger. It will present bespoke virtual environments for each artist, including a haunted castle and a doll’s house, aiming to offer visitors a heightened and immersive encounter with the featured artworks, enhancing the overall exhibition experience.
Lastly, here are a few Frieze LA highlights on behalf of LA Tourism!
There are countless art activations and unique attractions to be seen outside the gates of Frieze. Explore the latest newcomers in Los Angeles’ sprawling gallery scene including a new flagship location for Perrotin and the debut of Emma Fernberger’s gallery in the blossoming Melrose Hill neighborhood. Or stop by the satellite fairs, with presentations by more than sixty galleries at Felix Art Fair and an array of unconventional booths on view at the fifth edition of the SPRING/BREAK fair. And don’t miss the chance to explore the engineering marvels and artistry of one of history’s greatest minds at the new Leonardo da Vinci Exhibition at the Science Center or take a ride on Keith Haring’s carousel or Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Ferris wheel at the revived art amusement park Luna Luna.
