“Today has been our most successful first day at Frieze LA since the first year of the fair,” Hauser & Wirth president Marc Payot said in a statement emailed to ARTnews.

David Zwirner’s first-day sales included works by Joe Bradley, John McCracken, Steven Shearer, Lisa Yuskavage, Huma Bhabha, Dana Schutz and Suzan Frecon for values between $250,000 and $650,000.

Along with the mega-dealers who sold works in the early hours of the celebrity-filled fair, Casey Kaplan, Vielmetter, Roberts Projects, and Tina Kim Gallery also reported sales of works priced at $250,000 or higher.

Dominique Gallery said it placed all works in its solo presentation by Mustafa Ali Clayton, including sculptures ranging from $12,000 to $100,000. New York’s Kasmin Gallery reported ten works by vanessa german sold on opening day, each priced between $25,000 and $65,000. The artist won the Heinz Award for the Arts in 2022. pt.2 gallery from Oakland, California, said it placed all of their works by Muzae Sesay, but did not disclose sales amounts.

Below, a look at seven works that were sold during Frieze’s first couple days, according to the galleries that brought them to the fair.

(All sales are in USD unless otherwise indicated. Sales information is provided voluntarily by galleries but does not include confirmation of transactions, discounts, or other fees.)

For young galleries, art fairs like Frieze Los Angeles are a boon, but also a gamble: there’s the chance for exposure to top-notch collectors and a large audience, but without sales, the high cost can be deadly. The fair needs young galleries as much as or more than the galleries need them. After all, the fair burnishes its credibility by showing the most exciting young talent and the hottest galleries, even if it’s the blue chips that sell the most work. Frieze ensures this through Focus, a special section providing dedicated space to emerging galleries and their artists. But, as the art market grows ever more lopsided, so grows the challenge of putting together such a section.

For its fifth edition, which opens to VIPs tomorrow, Frieze LA has tapped Essence Harden to curate Focus. When Frieze director Christine Messineo hired them, Harden was one year into a new role as a curator at the California African American Museum in LA. Since 2017, Harden has built a reputation for organizing thoughtful exhibitions that investigate notions of Blackness and queerness. Working with Harden is a major draw for galleries and artists alike. For Harden, curating Focus allowed them to spotlight West Coast galleries that they felt could benefit from the exposure and that rarely show at fairs. About 60 percent of the galleries in Focus and around 50 percent in Frieze overall are based in LA.

Harden was handed a tough task nevertheless. This year’s Focus features only 11 galleries, compared to 19 last year, as part of a larger reduction in the fair’s size. With some 100 galleries applying, a mere 10 percent make the cut. Those odds are even slimmer when you consider that Harden and their Frieze colleagues reached out to certain galleries to encourage them to apply. This is a common, though little discussed, practice that art fairs use to ensure they show what are, in their view, the best exhibitors.

The pitch to galleries and artists for Focus, Harden told ARTnews, is pragmatic. The section is a dynamic “rotating, shifting” space designed to “move people along.” Harden views the fair as a platform to elevate less-established galleries based in California that aren’t active at large-scale fairs. “For those who really need it, it can serve as this guiding thing,” they said.

That pitch is important. Not only do young galleries have a hard time covering the cost of fairs, they also don’t necessarily favor participating in such overtly commercial events. Some dealers taking part in Focus told ARTnews that they hadn’t considered the commercial space to be right for them in the first place. Here, the words of a curator like Harden, whose reputation is built on elevating less salable but conceptually rigorous art, can make all the difference. Participating gallerists described Harden as a rare candidate in their field, a writer who knows the West Coast scene well and goes slowly when observing an artist’s development.

For Seth Curcio, a director at Los Angeles–based gallery Nazarian / Curcio, the hope is that Focus will increase exposure for photographer and UCLA professor Widline Cadet, who has greater recognition in New York after a residency at the Studio Museum in Harlem. In the Focus section, Cadet is exhibiting high-contrast images of Black models meandering outdoors, their faces often turned away from the camera. Cadet took all the photographs in LA, mostly at night, employing local models to stage scenes that reflect on her familial relationships.

“There’s a video embedded in the central photograph, which is primarily documentation from her family,” Curcio said. “We wanted to build on an institutional project that wasn’t presented here, to help bridge that gap a little.”

Still, participation can be a burden. Two galleries involved in the section told ARTnews that they were invited to Frieze at the last minute, which meant upending plans and budgets.

Brock Brake, who runs Oakland-based gallery pt.2, said he had stopped applying to fairs after rejections from the New Art Dealers Alliance and others, and had no plans to show in one this year. But a day before the application deadline, a Frieze LA official reached out asking the gallery to apply. They gave him and his artist, Muzae Sesay, one day to confirm their participation. Brake said he hadn’t planned for an outlay of $20,000 to $30,000, but the pressure of producing shows while under-resourced is something he and his artists are used to.

“There was never really an impetus to go even outside of Oakland,” Brake said, explaining that in the Bay Area, artists tend to follow a grassroots approach, involving small-scale collectives that aren’t sales-driven.

Having previously written press releases for pt.2, Harden knew the program well and felt that Sesay’s paintings—large-scale dusk-toned depictions of “the energy of blackness,” in the artist’s words—deserved a wider audience outside of Oakland.

Quinn Harrelson, a gallerist still in his early 20s who graduated from UCLA last year, also hadn’t planned to participate in a fair this year. The fair circuit hasn’t been a high priority because of the cost, he said, and his primary focus was on facilitating museum acquisitions.

“So much of what I do is determined by financial possibility. There are no collectors here [in Los Angeles],” Harrelson, the son of Cultured magazine founder Sarah Harrelson, said.

Frieze LA is Harrelson’s first fair. Though still in the early stages of building his program, it leans conceptual. He’ll be bringing work by Ser Serpas, a sculptor whose work is included in the 2024 Whitney Biennial. Harrelson became friends with Serpas as a teenager in Miami.

Serpas serves as a guide as Harrelson finds his footing on the West Coast. “She deals with the legacies of the artists that made Los Angeles relevant,” he said, seeing references to Paul McCarthy, Mike Kelley, and Kaari Upson in her work. They combine texture with what Harrelson describes as a “cold blooded conceptual rigor,” saying the era of artistic production feels like it’s no longer active. “I think that not a lot of art like that gets made anymore.”

Harrelson may be reaching toward LA’s art history, but Frieze’s Focus section is also oriented toward the art world’s future, where fashion and lifestyle brands are increasingly a factor. Emily Glazebrook, commercial director at Frieze, told ARTnews, “Focus isn’t oriented solely to facilitate sales, but rather as a space to blend art, content, and commerce.” Frieze is facilitating introductions between the section’s sponsor, the Italian streetwear brand Stone Island, and galleries in the section, in exchange for subsidies on their exhibitor fees. Meghan Gordon, the director of participating gallery OCHI, told ARTnews that Stone Island’s representatives recently visited their Washington Boulevard location to view Lilian Martinez’s work, which the gallery is bringing to Focus. Martinez runs her own brand, BFGF, producing art multiples.

“This is us introducing [Stone Island] to the contemporary art world,” Glazebrook said.

Such an introduction can be just the beginning of a larger process. Gordon said Martinez’s inclusion sparked interest in other gallery artists, leading to discussions about potential collaborations with the brand. Gordon said that Martinez’s portrayal of spaces, particularly those referencing the Yucca Valley, embody a Los Angeles lifestyle, where “leisure, pleasure, comfort, and luxury” are all touchpoints. She described Martinez’s brand as a “symbol of the attainable art object.”

Like that between galleries and fairs, the relationship between art and brands is yet another symbiotic one.

“Certain art fairs provide more visibility than New York Fashion Week,” Robert Liptak, the former creative director at RTA, a Los Angeles streetwear brand that has partnered with Frieze New York, told Vogue in May. He said that the fair franchise brought opportunities to be seen in proximity to other creatives.

This year’s LA fair is the first since media conglomerate Endeavor completed its buyout of the remaining 30 percent of Frieze this past May for $16.5 million, putting its total valuation at $55 million. The gambit for Endeavor is most clear in Los Angeles, where the company is well equipped, as Glazebrook put it, to heighten the fair’s blend of “art and entertainment.”

Pre-Fair Coffee and Nosh

In an alleyway near 26th and Broadway, GoodBoyBob Coffee Shop offers all kinds of specialty coffees, including one with with house-made vanilla syrup, as well as waffles, toast, and breakfast sandwiches like the “Client X Morning Sando” (brioche, egg, avocado, ham, cheese, red pepper aioli). There are fancy pour-overs like the “Sideshow Bob,” a two-course coffee extravaganza (“the same coffee, two different ways”) consisting of an espresso as well as a pour-over of the restaurant’s single origin Guatemala Rosendo Domingo.

Alternatively, you can head over to Layla Bagel, on Ocean Park Boulevard at 16th Street, where you’ll find what Eater recently referred to as “some of LA’s most coveted bagels.” Options include the usual lox with the works (“The Laika”), along with some more exotic combinations like “The Scarlett,” (heirloom tomato, lemon zest, and chili flakes), and a vegan option like “The Marli” (avocado, pickled onion, chili flakes, and sprouts).

A Morning Full of Art

Start your day at the fair by grabbing a floor plan to get the lay of the land. This year’s edition has a reconfigured layout, designed by WHY Architects, for the 95 exhibitors that are taking part. Make sure to check back for our “Best Booths” list once we’ve seen the fair on opening day.

A booth that is likely not to be missed—and sure to be crowded throughout the fair’s end—is Gagosian’s (D13), which will have a display curated by director Antwaun Sargent. Titled “Social Abstraction” and the first of three related presentations, the booth will have on view work by an intergenerational group of Black artists, including Theaster Gates, Rick Lowe, Lauren Halsey, and Cy Gavin.

Not faraway, Pace Gallery (D10) will feature a mix of historical works with recent pieces. Planned for the booth is a 1968 multicolored pour by Lynda Benglis, a 1970 Picasso drawing, an untitled all-black sculpture by Louise Nevelson from 1985, and a 1981 shaped canvas by Kenneth Noland, alongside a 2022 painting by Mary Corse, a 2023 sculpture by Alicja Kwade, a 2023 painting by Loie Hollowell, a 2024 mirror-and-paint tondo by Elmgreen & Dragset, and a pair of polychromed bronze Nike sneakers by Jeff Koons.

Hauser & Wirth (D12) will feature new and recent works by several artists from its roster, including Firelei Báez, Frank Bowling, Mark Bradford, Ed Clark, Charles Gaines, Henry Taylor, Mika Rottenberg, Pat Steir, and Uman. One aisle over, David Zwirner (E3) will present a selection of new paintings by Joe Bradley, ahead of his April solo show at the gallery’s New York space. Those will feature alongside works by Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Huma Bhabha, Noah Davis, Yayoi Kusama, Alice Neel, Chris Ofili, and Robert Ryman.

And before you break for lunch, make sure to check out the fair’s Nonprofits section, which will feature five LA-based nonprofits and one bookshop. Returning to the fair is AMBOS (Art Made Between Opposite Sides), founded by artist Tanya Aguiñiga, who curated a BIPOC exchange section at the fair’s 2022 edition. Other participants in this year’s Nonprofits section are Gallery 90220, which aims to provide a platform for emerging and underrepresented artists; People’s Pottery Project, which gives formerly incarcerated women, trans, and nonbinary individuals paid job training; and Reparations Club, an independent Black-owned bookstore.

A Mid-Day Repast

After a couple hours of art viewing, you’ll be hungry for lunch. The easiest (and often the yummiest) option is to stick around at the fair, where Frieze’s food selections are carefully curated. This year’s grouping of LA restaurants has been selected by Regarding Her (RE:Her), a nonprofit founded by nine LA-based female restaurateurs in the wake of the pandemic’s impact on the restaurant industry. The line-up includes 1010 Wine, Inglewood’s first, and so far only, wine bar focusing on Black-owned wineries; Botanica, the famed Silver Lake institution; Clementine, the family-owned, comfort-food hot stop in Century City; Kismet Rotisserie, the rotisserie chicken–focused sister spot to rising Mediterranean restaurant on Hollywood Boulevard, just off Vermont Avenue; and more.

If, however, there is no seating, or you need a break from the art fair, there are a few terrific spots nearby. In nearby Venice, there’s Gjelina, which the Infatuation recently attributed with ushering in a “vegetable-forward California cuisine” that is “all cutting edge and decidedly very ‘LA.’” The lunch menu includes a raw bar, several salads and vegetable options, and wood-fired pizzas.

Just a few blocks from the beach also in Venice is Gjusta, from the same owners as Gjelina, which Bon Appétit has called a “never-miss spot,” mentioning the smoked brisket sandwich, the chicken báhn mì and the smoked fish plate.

Finally, a stone’s throw from the Brentwood Country Club, in the celebrity-favored Brentwood Country Mart, is Farmshop. Those who wish to splurge on more than art might choose the service of Italian caviar. Especially intriguing among the farm-fresh items on the menu is the Angry Crab Saffron Torchio Pasta: alle-pia ‘Nduja sausage, Pacific Dungeness crab, herbed walnuts, and Calabrian chili pesto.

An Art-Packed Afternoon

Back at the fair, after some much need refreshments, check out San Francisco’s Altman Siegel (C6), which will feature works by Lynn Hershman Leeson, Trevor Paglen, and Simon Denny, artists who have long thought through their relationships with technology. Meanwhile, New York’s Casey Kaplan (A10) will have a solo presentation dedicated to new paintings by Jordan Casteel, including portraits, landscapes, and still lifes. And Ortuzar Projects (B11), a week before inaugurating its new space in Tribeca, will feature work by three artists who played integral roles in LA’s queer Chicano scene in the 1970s and ’80s: Carlos Almaraz, Joey Terrill, and Roberto Gil de Montes.

The fair’s Focus section is not to be missed. This year, the section includes 12 galleries and is curated by Essence Harden, visual arts curator at the California African American Museum and a co-curator of the upcoming 2025 Made in L.A. biennial. For the section, Harden has said she wanted to focus on artist “ecologies as a vibrant framework for art making.”

LA’s Babst Gallery (F7) will focus on Harry Fonseca (Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians), who was based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, from 1990 until his death in 2006. The booth will feature his paintings from the 1980s and ’90s, many of which feature anthropomorphized coyotes painting, performing La bohème, or dancing. Ochi (F5), another LA enterprise, will present a suite of paintings showing women at leisure by rising Mexican-American artist Lilian Martinez. And Shulamit Nazarian (F9) will highlight photographs by LA-based, Haiti-born artist Widline Cadet.

Cocktails and Conversation

There’s no better way to end a day at an art fair than at a buzzy spot where you can talk with your fellow-fairgoers about what you saw over cocktails and nibbles. Two places to see and be seen in the evening after a day at Frieze LA are the Georgian and the Proper. 

There is a lot of buzz around the Georgian this year—not surprisingly because it’s new. In April, BLVD Hospitality, in partnership with Esi Ventures, opened a restoration of this historic property that originally opened in 1933. It’s a jewel of the Art Deco period; guests of that era included Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable and Charlie Chaplin. (Full disclosure: ARTnews is hosting an intimate dinner at the Georgian after the VIP preview of Frieze LA.)

This elegant hotel, with 84 guest rooms, also features two dining options, both under the direction of Chef David Almany. The larger of the two is The Restaurant at The Georgian, which features Rigatoni Cacio e Pepe, Bucatini all’Amatriciana, and Grilled Branzino on its menu. Featured cocktails include “Shore Thing” (made with rosemary-infused tequila) and Geeze Louise (with an apricot-infused whiskey). Downstairs is The Georgian Room, a speakeasy of sorts—if you are opting for the more private setting. With reservations required, menu highlights include king crab cocktail, rigatoni alla vodka, and TGR dry-aged tomahawk ribeye.

With a serene but snazzy interior design by Kelly Wearstler, the Palma at the Proper is also a solid option. Pair a specialty cocktail like the Proper Martini (with blue cheese olives) or the El Mezconi (a mezcal take on a Negroni with an absinthe rinse) with snacks like the Parmesan or truffle fries or the beet (not beef) carpaccio. Or stay for dinner, where the offerings include a burger, a vegan burger, and the quintessentially California health conscious item, the herb-roasted cabbage (vegan pink peppercorn yogurt, toasted pine nut zhoug, puffed quinoa and herb crumble, and toasted chili flake).

A major change to this year’s edition is that its dates have been pushed back two weeks; the fair’s previous editions have typically taken place during the second week of February and often coincided with Valentine’s Day and the Presidents Day holiday weekend in the US.

“People tend to skip away for that long weekend,“ Christine Messineo, Frieze’s director of Americas, told ARTnews in an interview. “Since we’re a four-day fair, the hope is. that this will draw more people to come to the fair and spend more time in LA.“

The fair will return this year to the Santa Monica Airport, where it relocated beginning with the 2023 edition. For this edition, Frieze LA will reconfigure its floor plan and now include a central outdoor space that will be designed by WHY Architects. The fair will also not make use of the Barker Hanger, where a portion of exhibitors had been located last year. This edition of Frieze will also activate the athletic field and community park with performances and sculptures, respectively.

“The layout for 2024 is streamlined and efficient but designed with good sight lines and discoveries at every corner,” WHY founder and creative director Kulapat Yantrasast said in a statement. “Inside is a focused art experience with uplifting filtered natural light while the outside courtyard is full of art and cultural activities for friends to linger and connect.”

Messineo said she wanted to re-design the fair’s layout after her observations from last year’s fair where she noticed that visitors had decided to spend the day at the fair, as opposed to “dipping in and out” like they might in New York before gallery hopping in Chelsea. The central outdoor space itself responds to where many visitors congregated during the 2023 edition. “We have the feeling of a campus—and that’s something to embrace,” said Messineo. “We wanted to give visitors comfortable moments there.”

As with past editions, the fair will be split in two sections, with 83 exhibitors in the main Galleries section and 12 in the Focus section, dedicated to emerging US-based galleries. Across the fair, nearly 50 percent of participants have a location in the Greater LA area, and 13 will participate in the LA fair for the first-time, including closely watched galleries like Silverlens (of Manila and New York), Bank (Shanghai), and Kasmin (New York).

Among the leading LA galleries that will participate in the main section are David Kordansky Gallery, Blum (formerly Blum & Poe), François Ghebaly, Night Gallery, Nonaka-Hill, Regen Projects, Various Small Fires, and Anat Ebgi, which had previously participated in the Focus section.

Blue-chip galleries like Gagosian, Hauser & Wirth, Lisson Gallery, Pace, White Cube, and David Zwirner will also participate, as will Pilar Corrias, Gladstone, Xavier Hufkens, Gallery Hyundai, Jenkins Johnson, Mendes Wood DM, Ortuzar Projects, and Proyectos Monclova.

“What I have loved witnessing about LA is its growth over the past three years,” Messineo said. “LA has really been embraced the commercial art world, as evidenced by galleries who plant to open spaces there or have recently done so. And the city’s institutions have also embraced the fair. There’s a sense of excitement for this edition.”

Looking at artists “ecologies as a vibrant framework for art making,” the Focus section—which includes galleries like Matthew Brown, Lyles & King, Shulamit Nazarian, Make Room, Ochi, and Hannah Traore Gallery—will be curated this year by Essence Harden, visual arts curator at the California African American Museum.

In a statement, Harden said, “I was deeply interested in the possibility of stretching the term ecology to include position, geography, material and theoretical concerns within art making. The presentations chosen for this year’s Focus section reflect that winding impulse, highlighting a series of dynamic emerging galleries and artists.”

The full exhibitor list follows below.

Galleries

Focus

For the Frieze Los Angeles art fair, this means dozens of galleries — from across the city and around the world — shipping artworks to the Santa Monica Airport’s Barker Hangar in hopes they will be snapped up by collectors, curators, and other institutions.

Art shipping and transport is a service often provided at a premium by logistics companies like Maquette Fine Art Services and Crozier Fine Arts. Many of these companies offer art shipping and transport in conjunction with custom touring crates and protective containers, shipping preparation, and installation, as well as short and long-term storage. Art insurance is a separate matter, purchased from companies like Chubb and Berkeley Asset Protection.

In addition to arranging transportation logistics, art shipping companies help clients navigate security issues, customs, taxes, duties, as well as import and export regulations for different countries. With the international nature of the modern art industry, all of this is necessary in order to ensure artworks are moved safely and securely to and from artist studios, museums, galleries, and 300-plus art fairs and biennales, as well as the homes of private collectors.

Here are the most important things experts told ARTnews about art shipping:

Costs can quickly rack up

The most basic expenses to ship a framed artwork like a drawing or painting from a Los Angeles gallery to the Santa Monica Airport include a crate; internal packaging; a secure, temperature-controlled, air-cushioned, unmarked vehicle; moving staff; and a truck driver. This process can quickly become more expensive and complicated when a gallery features multiple artists, requires custom crates for large, heavy and/or fragile sculptures or ceramics, is shipping the items long-distance or internationally, or needs express delivery.

“It’s not uncommon for people to call a week before,” Fine Art Shippers cofounder Ilya Kushnirskiy told ARTnews.

For the transport of rare, valuable, and/or high-profile artworks, like Thomas Kaplan’s loan of Vermeer’s Young Woman Sitting at a Virginal currently on display in the sold-out retrospective at the Rjiksmuseum in Amsterdam, it’s not unusual for “white glove” services in Europe to include a security escort to help ensure the safe and secure arrival to their final destination.

Materials matter

If you’re ever tempted to ship a piece of art yourself, don’t use bubble wrap. Shippers have told James Ferrer, head of fine art and vice president at the Lockton insurance brokerage firm, that the popular packaging material imprints on the artworks.

“It’s very difficult to get that off the surface, particularly on an oil painting,” he said. “They generally use acid-free paper so that there’s no damage being caused to the artworks.”

Don’t forget about taxes

Galleries pay taxes on the operational expenses of bringing in items for an art fair, but sales and use taxes are paid by art buyers and collectors.

While imported works of art into the US are duty free, state and local taxes on art purchases at fairs like Frieze LA can add up to more than 10 percent. If an art collector or buyer goes to Frieze LA and plans on shipping a purchased piece to another state like New York, they may pay a lower sales tax (or none at all) but be assessed for a use tax at the final destination instead. The latter is payable directly to the Tax Department when filing an annual income tax return. Only Delaware, New Hampshire, Montana, Oregon, or Alaska do not have sales tax or use taxes.

The most famous example of an art collector failing to properly pay taxes on his art is former Tyco International chairman Dennis Kozlowski, who agreed in 2006 to pay over $20 million to settle charges of avoiding New York sales tax on a dozen paintings, including pieces by Monet and Renoir.

Sea freight is often not viable

While sustainability is becoming a growing concern in the art industry, and the Frieze Los Angeles art fair takes place near the busiest port in the United States, experts told ARTnews that most art shipped to high-profile events and exhibitions is done by plane.

Sea freight has 47 times fewer carbon emissions and is 12–16 times cheaper than air cargo rates. But experts told ARTnews the increased risk of damage and longer processing time often makes shipping artworks by sea a non-viable option for many art fairs and exhibitions.

“We really can’t plan things advanced enough for us to pursue sea travel,” Trey Hollis, director of exhibitions at the New York gallery P.P.O.W., told ARTnews. “A good industry standard for a local delivery or an international delivery is for things to be in transit for the least amount of time possible. You want things to get to their destination, and we pay accordingly.”

The are many other ways shipping by sea is less than ideal for art beyond the significantly slower delivery time and lower costs.

“Once the container is loaded onto the vessel, it’s very difficult to control exactly where that container is going to be set in the boat,” Ferrer said. “You wouldn’t want your multimillion pound artworks in with tractor materials or farming goods. And also that it’s still below deck, because as soon as you get a massive storm, obviously the the containers on the deck are going to be washed overboard.”

In 2020, a partnership between Crozier and the Independent Art Fair offered a discounted rate to LA-based galleries in exchange for sending works in one chunk. The goal was to reduce the waste associated with numerous shipments of work common at international art fairs.

You get what you pay for

Ferrer was blunt when offering his top advice is for new buyers of art: It’s worth using a professional packing and shipping company instead of Federal Express.

“They will get there as quickly as possible and quicker than anyone else, but whether it arrives in the same condition as it left in is that is just the question,” he said with a laugh.

Ferrer said the worst thing a buyer could do is spend a significant sum for a piece and then cheap out on its transport home, setting themselves up for damage, disappointment, or even possible loss.

“You want them to be in the same condition that you saw them on on the booth and in the art fair. It’s worth the investment,” he said.

The fair will take place over multiple sites across the airport, including the Barker Hangar and the outdoor space near the airfield, with the exhibition tent designed again by Kulapat Yantrasast’s Why Architecture. 

The fair last year was held in a tent next to the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills under the direction of the newly appointed director for Frieze’s two U.S. fairs, Christine Messineo. Messineo told the Los Angeles Times that the Beverly Hilton location was not available for 2023, and the organization chose the airport for its capacity and flexibility.

The returning galleries include Gagosian, Hauser & Wirth, David Zwirner, Pace Gallery, Gladstone, Thaddaeus Ropac, Marian Goodman, Almine Rech, Sadie Coles HQ, and James Fuentes. The fair once again has a strong emphasis on local participation, with some 30 galleries based in L.A., including veteran participants Blum & Poe, Commonwealth and Council, David Kordansky Gallery, Night Gallery, Regen Projects, and Various Small Fires.

The Focus section of the fair, located in the Barker Hangar, will feature 18 galleries from across the U.S. that were founded 12 years and younger. The Walker Art Center’s Amanda Hunt will curate the Focus area for the second year, this time joined by new associate curator Sonya Tamaddon. Frieze Projects—the section of the fair devoted to curated site-specific installations and large-scale sculptures—will be overseen by the nonprofit Art Production Fund and Jay Ezra Nayssan, founder and director of Del Vaz Projects. 

The super-sized edition of Frieze follows a period of intense investment in Los Angeles’ art market, with a host of East Coast galleries set to inaugurate outposts in Southern California in 2023—a groundswell of interest some dealers credit to the fair itself. 

“Frieze managed to create a one-week event where the art world stops in L.A. It’s instantly become the most important week in L.A. for us,” François Ghebaly, whose gallery opened in 2009, told ARTnews. “The energy here is spread out, and ranges across many types of spaces and events. To channel all of this energy in one week is difficult.”

Below is the list of galleries participating in Frieze Los Angeles 2023.

303 Gallery, New York

Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York

Antenna Space, Shanghai

Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco

Blum & Poe, Los Angeles, New York, Tokyo

Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York, Aspen

Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York, Los Angeles

Bortolami, New York

The Box, Los Angeles

Canada, New York, East Hampton

Chapter NY, New York

Château Shatto, Los Angeles

Clearing, Brussels, New York, Los Angeles

James Cohan, New York

Sadie Coles HQ, London

Commonwealth and Council, Los Angeles, Mexico City

Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, Palm Beach

Dastan Gallery, Tehran

Massimo De Carlo, Beijing, Hong Kong, Paris, London, Milan

Jeffrey Deitch, Los Angeles, New York

Andrew Edlin Gallery, New York

Donald Ellis Gallery, Vancouver, New York

Emalin, London

Stephen Friedman Gallery, London

James Fuentes, New York

Gaga, Mexico City, Los Angeles

Gagosian, Los Angeles, New York, London, Paris, Geneva, Basel, Rome, Athens, Hong Kong, Gstaad

Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles

François Ghebaly, Los Angeles, New York

Gladstone Gallery, New York, Brussels, Rome, Los Angeles, Seoul

Goodman Gallery, Cape Town, Johannesburg, London,

Marian Goodman Gallery, New York, Paris, Los Angeles

Gordon Robichaux, New York

Alexander Gray Associates, New York, Germantown

Garth Greenan Gallery, New York

Hakgojae Gallery, Seoul

Hauser & Wirth, London, New York, Somerset, Los Angeles, Zurich, Gstaad, Hong Kong, St. Moritz, Menorca, Southampton, Monaco

Herald St, London

Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin, Paris, London, Marfa

Hannah Hoffman, Los Angeles

Xavier Hufkens, Brussels

Gallery Hyundai, New York, Seoul

Instituto de Visión, New York, Bogota

Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo

Alison Jacques, London

Jenkins Johnson Gallery, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco

Johyun Gallery, Busan

Casey Kaplan, New York

Karma, New York, Los Angeles

kaufmann repetto, Milan, New York

Sean Kelly, New York, Los Angeles

Anton Kern Gallery, New York

Tina Kim Gallery, New York

König Galerie, Berlin, Seoul

David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles, New York

Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York

Kukje Gallery, Seoul, Busan

L.A. Louver, Los Angeles

Layr, Vienna

Lehmann Maupin, New York, Seoul, London

Galerie Lelong & Co., New York, Paris

David Lewis, New York

Lisson Gallery, London, New York, Los Angeles, Beijing, Shanghai

Luhring Augustine, New York

Matthew Marks Gallery, New York, Los Angeles

Galerie Max Mayer, Düsseldorf

Mazzoleni, London, Turin

Anthony Meier Fine Arts, San Francisco

Mendes Wood DM, São Paulo, Brussels, New York

Victoria Miro, London, Venice

Misako & Rosen, Tokyo, Brussels

The Modern Institute, Glasgow

Taro Nasu, Tokyo

Night Gallery, Los Angeles

Ortuzar Projects, New York

Overduin & Co., Los Angeles

Pace Gallery, New York, Los Angeles, London, Hong Kong, Geneva, Seoul, Palm Beach, East Hampton

Maureen Paley, London

Parrasch Heijnen, Los Angeles

Perrotin, Paris, New York, Hong Kong, Seoul, Tokyo, Shanghai, Dubai

The Pit, Los Angeles, Palm Springs

Project Native Informant, London

Proyectos Monclova, Mexico City

Almine Rech, New York, Paris, Brussels, London, Shanghai

Regen Projects, Los Angeles

Roberts Projects, Los Angeles

Robilant+Voena, New York, Paris, Milan, London

Nara Roesler, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, New York

Thaddaeus Ropac, London, Paris, Salzburg, Seoul

Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York

Richard Saltoun Gallery, Rome, London

Marc Selwyn Fine Art, Los Angeles

Jack Shainman Gallery, New York

Jessica Silverman, San Francisco

Sperone Westwater, New York

Sprüth Magers, Berlin, London, Los Angeles, New York

Standard, Oslo

Craig F. Starr Gallery, New York

Tiwani Contemporary, Lagos, London

Tornabuoni, Florence, Milan, Forte dei Marmi, Paris, Crans Montana

Various Small Fires (VSF), Seoul, Dallas, Los Angeles

Nicola Vassell, New York

Venus Over Manhattan, New York

Vielmetter Los Angeles, Los Angeles

Welancora Gallery, New York

White Cube, London, Hong Kong, New York, Paris, West Palm Beach

David Zwirner, New York, London, Paris, Hong Kong

Focus Section

Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles

Baert, Los Angeles

Bel Ami, Los Angeles

Chela Mitchell Gallery, Washington, D.C.

Chris Sharp, Los Angeles

Dreamsong, Minneapolis

Hannah Traore, New York

Kristina Kite, Los Angeles

Make Room, Los Angeles

Nonaka Hill, Los Angeles

Ochi Projects, Los Angeles

Of the Cloth, New York

Parker Gallery, Los Angeles

Patron, Chicago

Paul Soto/Park View, Los Angeles, Brussels

regularnormal, New York

Sebastian Gladstone, Los Angeles

Sow & Tailor, Los Angeles

Stars, Los Angeles

The Headlines

A ‘COMPLETE CATASTROPHE’ has taken place in the German city of Manching, according to its mayor, Herbert Nerb. He was referring to the theft of a cache of 450 Celtic coins that was stolen from a museum there on Tuesday. According to the Guardian, that group is worth several million euros. To undertake the heist, the thieves cut off the museum’s telephone service and the internet connection, and broke into a showcase. Markus Blume , the minister of arts and sciences for the Bavaria region, did not mince words when he called the occurrence a “disaster.”

PARTY POLEMIC. The New York politician Carolyn Maloney, a Democratic Representative in the House, may have gotten herself into a good deal of trouble by allegedly seeking an invite to the Met Gala, Politico reports. Investigators with the House Ethics Committee have said that Maloney had called Emily Rafferty, a former president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s board, to procure a seat at the closely watched party after being cut from its guest list in 2016. Maloney said she didn’t remember having done so. The committee also claimed to have found an email in which she sought entrée to the 2020 edition of the gala. Why is any of this a potential issue? “If Rep. Maloney solicited or accepted impermissible gifts, then she may have violated House rules, standards of conduct and federal law,” an official report said.

The Digest

The Frieze art fair has revealed the exhibitor list for its 2023 Los Angeles edition, its largest-ever event in the city, with more than 120 galleries lined up. [Los Angeles Times]

Two Just Stop Oil protestors were found guilty of damaging the frame of a Vincent van Gogh painting at London’s Courtauld Gallery. A judge said they’d permanently altered the frame. [The Guardian]

Grace Ndiritu, whose work often forms of healing and decolonization, is this year’s winner of the Film London Jarman Award, which goes to one filmmaker based in the U.K. each year. She will take home £10,000. [The Guardian]

The 26-year-old dealer Cierra Britton is opening a new gallery in New York’s Lower East Side that will count as “the only one of its kind in New York dedicated to representing BIPOC womxn artists,” Folasade Ologundudu writes. [Artnet News]

Architect David Adjaye, who’s currently at work on a new building for the Studio Museum in Harlem, will make a rammed-earth sculptural installation that will encircle the Griot Museum of Black History in St. Louis. Titled Asaase III, it’s similar to a work that appeared in an Antwaun Sargent–curated Gagosian show last year. [St. Louis Public Radio]

New York’s Hollis Taggart gallery has taken on the estates of two Abstract Expressionists whose estates haven’t had gallery representation for years—Norman Carton and Albert Kotin—and well as the nonagenarian artist Sheila Isham. [The Art Newspaper]

The Kicker

HOP TO IT. The K-pop star RM has revealed himself to be art lover and collector as of late, with his Instagram acting as a reliable log of all the museums he’s been to. “As one of many art enthusiasts, I just want to visit great exhibitions when I get a chance and share with people so they can enjoy them as well,” he told ARTnews earlier this year. The latest institution he’s attended is the Whitney Museum in New York, where he saw an Edward Hopper survey. Of his trip to the city, he wrote, “so good to be back !” [@rkive/Instagram]

The Headlines

CLEARED FOR LANDING. Those attending the 2023 edition of Frieze Los Angeles will need to head to the Santa Monica Airport, the Los Angeles Times reports. The fair giant plans to construct a tent there for its February run that will be designed by Why Architecture’s Kulapat Yantrasast with Mark Thomann , who also handled the tent for its stand this year in Beverly Hills. “We were so pleased with the Beverly Hilton, but the owners of the space will be breaking ground for a development that’s been planned for a number of years, so we can’t stay there,” the fair’s director, Christine Messineo, told the paper. In other airport-and-art-related news, the new Delta Air Lines terminal opening on Saturday at New York’s LaGuardia Airport features work commissioned by Delta, with the Queens Museum, from Virginia Overton, Rashid Johnson, Fred Wilson, and more. Reporter Hilarie M. Sheets took a look inside for the New York Times.

BUCKLE UP! It is a banner day for artist profiles. Shahzia Sikander was covered by Naib Mian for the New Yorker. Daniel Boyd is in the Guardian via the writing of Steve Dow. And Shuvinai Ashoona, who is having a moment at the Venice Biennale, is in a  New York Times story by Patricia Leigh Brown set in Kinngait, Nunavut, Canada. Grab a hot cup of coffee (or a cocktail, depending on your local time), and enjoy.

The Digest

Archaeologists in Palenque in southwestern Mexico have unearthed a statue of a Mayan maize god that is believed to date back some 1,300 years. [AFP/France24]

David Kordansky Gallery, of Los Angeles and New York, now represents Odili Donald Odita, the painter “known for his dynamic abstractions that pulse with energy,” Maximilíano Durón writes. The Philadelphia–based artist will continue to be repped by Jack Shainman Gallery. [ARTnews]

The Brooklyn architecture firm SO-IL has been tapped to build a new home for the formidable Williams College Museum of Art in Williamstown, Massachusetts. The new structure is slated to be finished in 2026 or 2027. Its design will be completed next year. [The Art Newspaper]

Efforts to create a statue for telegraphy pioneer Guglielmo Marconi in Cardiff, Wales, are being reviewed, and may be canceled, after the inventor’s support for Benito Mussolini was raised. The proposed piece would commemorate Marconi sending a radio signal across the sea, from Wales, in 1897. [BBC News]

Elsa Åkesson and Rachel Esham have been named the winners of the $50,000 Gavel Prize, which is given annually to entrepreneurs who are current or former students of the Sotheby’s Institute of Art. Åkesson makes art packaging under the brand Spongy Bags, and Esham runs the SideArt sales platform. [Financial Times]

A building that Marcel Breuer designed to be the headquarters for the Armstrong Rubber Company in New Haven, Connecticut, has just reopened as a Hilton Hotel. Fans of artist Tom Burr may recall that he used the structure as an exhibition site in 2017 via Bortolami gallery’s “Artist/City” program. [Architectural Digest]

The Kicker

THE SCOREBOARD. Artist Tracey Emin, who is one of the most quotable people on planet, gave a characteristically candid interview (death, menopause, etc.) with Artnet News on the occasion of her current show at Jupiter Artland in Wilkieston, Scotland. She senses critical taste coming around in her favor. “As an artist, it’s been really difficult for me,” Emin told the outlet. “I think a lot of people misjudged me, got me wrong. But I think I feel slowly things are changing for me. People are starting to realize that I wasn’t a screaming banshee. I actually was making some really good points.” [Artnet News]

Works by Chris Burden, Glenn Kaino, Larry Bell, Beatriz Cortez, Pedro Reyes, Woody De Othello, Takis, Spencer Lewis, Ugo Rondinone and others were to be included in Frieze Sculpture staged in a Beverly Hills park. Many of the works were being shipped to L.A., but they are currently stuck at ports and won’t arrive in time for the fair. As people isolate and battle the Omicron wave, it became too difficult to the bring the works to Beverly Hills in time for the fair’s opening.

“We have determined that we do not have sufficient artworks to realize a full-scale public-sculpture installation,” a representative for Frieze told the LA Times.

However, fair managers are currently deciding whether or not to exhibit an abbreviated set of sculptures. “We’re working out what that programming will be with the galleries and artists, we’ll confirm next week,” the rep said.

Frieze Los Angeles is currently scheduled to open to the public on February 17. It isn’t the only fair to be affected by Covid-related issues. Art Basel Hong Kong recently announced that its 2022 edition would be delayed from March to May as Covid cases rose in the city.

The first edition held under the direction of the newly appointed director for Frieze’s two U.S. fairs, Christine Messineo, this fair will bring together galleries from 17 different countries, including Gagosian, Hauser & Wirth, David Zwirner, Pace Gallery, Gladstone, Thaddaeus Ropac, Marian Goodman, Almine Rech, Sadie Coles HQ, and Nara Roesler.

It will also have a strong emphasis on local participation, with 38 of them based in L.A., including Blum & Poe, Commonwealth and Council, Kayne Griffin, David Kordansky Gallery, Night Gallery, Regen Projects, and Various Small Fires. First-time participants in the L.A. iteration of Frieze include Galerie Lelong & Co., Jenkins Johnson Gallery, Bortolami, Stephen Friedman Gallery, Alison Jacques, and Sean Kelly, which recently announced it would expand to Los Angeles with a new space opening later in 2022.

The fair will include two special sections. The first is Frieze Sculpture Beverly Hills, a new public art program that takes after similar ones in London and New York. That section will be staged in the nearby Beverly Gardens Park, where the works will be on view for three months. The second is Focus LA, which will focus exclusively on presenting one- or two-person presentations from L.A.-based galleries younger than 15 years old. Organized by Amanda Hunt, director of public programs and creative practice at the forthcoming Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, the section will feature Luis De Jesus, Charlie James Gallery, Parker Gallery, Garden, and Stars.

“Looking forward to both of our American fairs, I am excited that they are in a position to represent the ecosystems of our participating galleries and, most importantly, showcase the creative community of the cities where we sit,” Messineo said in a statement. “In Los Angeles, this takes many forms, both within the framework of the tent, with significant participation from Los Angeles galleries, as well as outside of the fair architecture.”

The full list of exhibitors follows below.

Galleries

47 Canal
Miguel Abreu Gallery
Acquavella
Blum & Poe
Tanya Bonakdar Gallery
Bortolami
The Box
Carlos/Ishikawa
Chapter NY
Château Shatto
James Cohan
Sadie Coles HQ
Commonwealth and Council
Paula Cooper Gallery
Pilar Corrias
Thomas Dane Gallery
Dastan Gallery
Massimo De Carlo
Jeffrey Deitch
Emalin
Stephen Friedman Gallery
Gaga
Gagosian
François Ghebaly
Gladstone Gallery
Goodman Gallery
Marian Goodman Gallery
Alexander Gray Associates
Hauser & Wirth
Herald St
Galerie Max Hetzler
Hannah Hoffman Gallery
Xavier Hufkens
Gallery Hyundai
Taka Ishii Gallery
Alison Jacques
Jenkins Johnson Gallery
Casey Kaplan
Karma
kaufmann repetto
Kayne Griffin
Sean Kelly
Anton Kern Gallery
Tina Kim Gallery
König Galerie
David Kordansky Gallery
Kukje Gallery
L.A. Louver
LambdaLambdaLambda
Lehmann Maupin
Galerie Lelong & Co.
David Lewis
Lisson Gallery
Matthew Marks Gallery
Mendes Wood DM
Nino Mier Gallery
Victoria Miro
Modern Art
The Modern Institute
Night Gallery
Galleria Franco Noero
Ortuzar Projects
Overduin & Co.
Pace Gallery
Maureen Paley
Parrasch Heijnen
Perrotin
The Pit
Galerie Eva Presenhuber
Project Native Informant
Almine Rech
Regen Projects
Roberts Projects
Nara Roesler
Thaddaeus Ropac
Michael Rosenfeld Gallery
Marc Selwyn Fine Art
Jack Shainman Gallery
Jessica Silverman
Société
Southard Reid
Sprüth Magers
Craig F. Starr Gallery
Various Small Fires (VSF)
Vermelho
Vielmetter
White Cube
Zeno X Gallery
David Zwirner 

FOCUS LA GALLERIES

Baert Gallery, Iliodora Margellos, Paolo Colombo
Bel Ami, Ben Sakoguchi
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles, Rodrigo Valenzuela
Garden, Sarah Rosalena Brady
Gattopardo, Dirk Knibbe, Gabriel Madan
In Lieu, Ficus Interfaith, Pauline Shaw
Charlie James Gallery, Patrick Martinez, Jay Lynn Gomez
Marta, Minjae Kim, Chase Biado & Antonia Pinter
Parker Gallery, Melvino Garretti, Troy Lamarr Chew II
Stanley’s, Timo Fahler, Amia Yokoyama
Stars, Eric-Paul Riege