Frieze LA secures city’s status as an art market destination

Los Angeles seems finally to have secured its spot on the international art market scene, catapulted by the Frieze fair that hosted its fourth edition last week (February 16-19). Reported sales were brisk while sellout shows were announced from the coinciding gallery openings in town — though with plenty of pre-selling to boost the on-the-day announcements.

There was no shortage of artists and museum curators at the fair, while Hollywood celebrities were out in force, including Owen Wilson, Elijah Wood and Gwyneth Paltrow. Prominent US collectors roaming the booths included Frieze’s owner Ari Emanuel, chief executive of talent agency Endeavor, with his wife, the fashion designer Sarah Staudinger.

Artists and galleries from Los Angeles and the Bay Area proved their worth among their international peers, with highlights including Diedrick Brackens at Various Small Fires, Max Hooper Schneider at François Ghebaly (also at London’s Maureen Paley gallery), and Sadie Barnette and Woody De Othello at Jessica Silverman. Mega-gallery Hauser & Wirth, which opened a new space in West Hollywood last week, brought a booth dedicated to 14 artists and estates from the city. They reported the priciest sale of the week, Mark Bradford’s “Shall Rest in Honor There” (2023) for $3.5mn, while Thaddaeus Ropac brought a recent Georg Baselitz painting called “In Hollywood” (2022), which went for €1.3mn. Emanuel picked up another aptly named work, “Stairway to the Stars” (c1962), from a solo booth of the late African-American painter Bob Thompson at Michael Rosenfeld Gallery. The price was not specified, though larger paintings were offered between $1.4mn and $3.5mn.

Frieze LA’s latest venue — Santa Monica airport — is its third spot since the fair’s launch in 2019 and prompted mixed opinions. The elevated east site housed 90 of the fair’s 124 galleries and had a fittingly airy feel, enhanced by Frieze’s trademark tent, although the occasional aeroplane engines from above were disconcerting. Given Los Angeles’ sprawling geography, it was impossible to please everyone. For visitors coming from the beachside, Santa Monica the venue was extremely convenient, but it proved something of a trek from Beverly Hills during rush hour, never mind from downtown.

There were initial grumbles from the 39 galleries put in a separate space, the Barker Hangar, a good five-minute walk (or golf buggy ride) away and with an eclectic mix of 20th-century art and emerging contemporary works. But galleries took it very seriously: LA Louver’s showing of work from the estate of Edward & Nancy Kienholz gave an immediately heavy-hitting feel (priced up to $1.8mn). Luckily too, the Barker Hangar was the drop-off point for Los Angeles’ many taxis, so was busy. “I think some people came in by mistake as they thought this was the main fair, but they definitely stayed,” enthused Chris Sharp, in the Focus section. He sold several works by Edgar Ramirez ($12,000-$20,000), including one to The City of Santa Monica Art Bank Collection, in a partnership launched with Frieze this year. Ramirez’s work addresses the impact of Los Angeles’ gentrification on low-income areas.

It is hard not to fall in love with the boutique Felix Art Fair. Held in the Hollywood Roosevelt hotel (where the first Academy Awards were hosted in 1929), Felix fielded 27 of its 65 galleries in the cabanas around the hotel’s David Hockney-designed swimming pool. The other galleries, on the 11th and 12th floors of the hotel tower, seemed no less loved, with views of the city and plenty of Los Angeles sunshine pouring through.

“We knew there had to be a better experience than the commoditised fairs we were seeing on the circuit,” says the gallerist Mills Morán, who co-founded the fair alongside Frieze LA in 2019, with his brother and Dean Valentine, a California entrepreneur.

The mostly cutting-edge galleries brought high-quality work this year and made the most of the unusual setting, balancing paintings on beds, sculptures on side-tables and several works in bathrooms. These included a video by Brian Bress, rather riskily placed in a cabana wet-room by Josh Lilley gallery, and works by Jeremy Everett above the toilet and directly under a showerhead at fair first-timer Wilding Cran (each priced at $4,000). The Los Angeles gallery’s co-founder, Naomi deLuce Wilding, reported several sales from a selection of artists priced between $2,000 and $150,000. “I would happily do it again, if they’ll have me!,” she said.

Several gallerists are adding to their square footage with new spaces in Los Angeles this season, but New York’s James Fuentes is of a different mould to the international set. With only one space on the Lower East Side since 2007, his expansion into 3,700 sq ft in Los Angeles’ Melrose Hill area this spring (and to Tribeca later in the year) marks a step change. “I started out with a programme without any filters of elitism, ageism, sexism or racism. And in the past five to 10 years there has been a similar recalibration from the market and museums,” Fuentes says. Of Los Angeles, he says that the move is about the next generation of buyers: “I’m meeting more and more developing collectors there than in New York: at the moment, LA has it going on.” He will open with a show of 14 new works by the Haiti-born artist Didier William, who fuses painting, printmaking, carving and collage to powerful effect ($30,000-$120,000). William currently has a solo show at MOCA North Miami, until April 16.

And finally . . . Hats off to the bright spark in Christie’s marketing department who organised an advert for its forthcoming sale of Adam Lindemann’s collection to appear on the Uber app whenever anyone booked a ride to or from Frieze LA, Felix or the swanky Shutters on the Beach hotel. Given the reliance on taxi services in Los Angeles, the ad hit the spot and was swiftly shared between the visitors in town. Uber-featured works from the March 9 auction included Andy Warhol’s “Little Electric Chair” (1964, est $4mn-$6mn) and Jeff Koons’s kitsch “Ushering in Banality” (1988, est $2.5mn-$3.5mn). Lindemann seemed pleased as punch from his Frieze LA booth, where he also reported healthy sales through his gallery, Venus Over Manhattan.

Find out about our latest stories first — follow @ftweekend on Twitter