Frieze Los Angeles diary: A-listers abound, Koh’s coffee break and Bowers’s champagne moment

Hollywood stars align for Frieze opening day

Hollywood A-listers were lined up with the rest of Los Angeles’s collector class to be among the first in the door during Frieze Los Angeles’s VIP preview on Thursday. Among the early arrivals were the Star Trek star Zachary Quinto, U2 guitarist The Edge, film-actor brothers Luke and Owen Wilson, longtime friends Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire, Dune and Avengers star Josh Brolin, The Sinner star Jessica Biel, and many more. The comedy legend Will Ferrell and his wife, Viveca Paulin-Ferrell (who serves on the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s board), spent some time speaking with the artist Gary Tyler in his Frieze Impact Prize solo stand. Rob Lowe, star of The Outsiders and Parks and Recreation, was seen taking a close look at paintings by the Chinese artist Shen Xin on the stand of the Shanghai-based MadeIn Gallery.

Terence Koh’s caffeine hit

On Tuesday, the artist Terence Koh inaugurated [Room], the new project space of the Hollywood gallery Make Room, with an understated but surreal sunset performance. “I’m going to make a fresh pot of coffee, if you’d like to join me,” he said, inviting visitors to follow him into an immersive installation. Over the past few weeks, Koh has transformed the small 16ft-by-9ft space into a cave with walls of packed, still-wet earth, moss and the dim light of a red lightbulb. Inside, a small gas stove nested in a pile of branches burned like a campfire continuously. Dressed unassumingly in black, he knelt on the earthen floor and boiled water, adding ingredients he pulled from the walls of the cave. Outside on the pavement, under the amber glow of a lamp strung from a tree, Koh sat at a makeshift café of acrylic stools and proceeded to serve coffee out of tiny paper cups, a gesture that felt both generous and intimate. The coffee was aromatic and delicious. The performance and installation, called KOHFEE, mark the first of [Room]’s site-specific and experimental artist projects. Koh will serve up a second performance of his earthy coffee shop on Saturday from 10am to 4pm.

Dreamy Fellini

This year’s Felix Art Fair contains a rare treat from one of cinema’s most beloved visionaries. Anchoring the Rome-based art space Studioli’s presentation at The Hollywood Roosevelt hotel are drawings from the late, great Federico Fellini. The works come from the son of Rino Carboni, Fellini’s makeup artist on films ranging from 1969’s Satyricon to 1980’s City of Women. Once practical guides for Carboni’s work on set, they double as documents of Fellini’s dreams, the cornerstone of his storytelling. Select drawings are priced from $3,500 to $18,000. Founded by the artist Alessandro Cicoria and the photographer Valeria Giampietro, Studioli has staged two Fellini exhibitions in its permanent space. The most recent, Fellini Spirits, ran from midnight to 4am for one night only, with fog machines and dramatic lighting creating a vibe worthy of its inspiration.

Ruinart raises a glass to environmentalist art

Andrea Bowers has had a long and distinguished career, but now she is truly having her “champagne moment”. The artist and activist has worked with Ruinart, the esteemed champagne house, to create a pair of eco-themed works now on display in the brand’s sleek pavilion outside Frieze Los Angeles’s main tent. She sat down with The Art Newspaper just as the entire art world seemed to gravitate towards her—Serpentine director Hans Ulrich Obrist and the artist Suzanne Lacy were hovering within minutes—and took us on a journey from her earliest days of climate protesting to the creation of the current pieces.

The works comprise a wall of ribbon banners imprinted with phrases such as “there is only one Earth”—visitors are encouraged to take one—and a chandelier featuring glass shapes resembling oak leaves and Chardonnay grapes. Bowers says she’s a firm believer in harnessing the power of a luxury brand to make real change, though she admits there are also other benefits to Ruinart’s commitment to the environment. “I get to love champagne and love the planet,” she says. Cheers to that!

Serpentine celebrates

Young and Beautiful singer Lana Del Rey was on hand at the West Hollywood home of Sybil Robson Orr and Matthew Orr on Wednesday night to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Serpentine Americas Foundation. Also gathered under the couple’s eye-catching James Turrell Skyspace installation were artists including Tyler Mitchell, Refik Anadol, Alex Israel and Lauren Halsey, as well as the Serpentine’s artistic director Hans Ulrich Obrist and chief executive (and former Frieze Los Angeles executive director) Bettina Korek.