‘Los Angeles is like a phoenix’: Frieze gives boost to city’s artists and galleries

The crowd inside the tents felt like family to many Los Angeles dealers, museum leaders, curators and artists at yesterday’s VIP preview day of Frieze Los Angeles. In danger of being cancelled due to the catastrophic Eaton and Palisades wildfires, the fair forged ahead in support of Angeleno artists. Many in the art community across the city were impacted—their homes, studios and collections destroyed.

Dealers and museum leaders who pushed Frieze to move forward and open on schedule feel their choice was the right one and that the atmosphere on day one was like a reunion. Fears of low attendance and sagging sales were immediately assuaged with sold-out stands and thousands of guests.

“When a city meets this kind of a challenge, you find out what it’s made of,” Joanne Heyler, the founding director and the Broad museum, tells The Art Newspaper. “In people’s imaginations, Los Angeles holds this cliché that it’s spread out or a little disconnected, but to see so many people show up and multiple relief funds target the specific needs of artists is heartening.”

“After the VIP breakfast, everyone wanted to continue sitting together,” says Christine Messineo, Frieze’s director in the US. “Many asked how they could help, and I told them they were here to transact and support. And we’re seeing the results of that today.”

With around 100 exhibitors, the pace of the fair saw less hustle and more consideration, with a focus on showing and acquiring works by Los Angeles artists from both hometown and international galleries. “I’m thrilled to see that other galleries, advisers, curators and collectors felt the same and that they all showed up,” says David Maupin, the co-founder of Lehmann Maupin. “We’ve had a good [start to the] fair, all things considered, and have seen strong sales.”

David Zwirner led all the early reported sales with a 1997 Elizabeth Peyton painting selling for $2.8m and a work by the late California painter Noah Davis, Untitled (2015), going for $2.5m. The gallery’s opening-day business totalled $9.5m overall, with other works sold including paintings by Alice Neel, Lisa Yuskavage, two works on paper by Kai Althoff and a 2003 painting by Laura Owens, which went for an undisclosed price.

Gladstone Gallery reported sales of more than $3m on opening day, including a Keith Haring painting on glass that sold for $2m, several editions of Robert Mapplethorpe photographs for prices between $200,000 and $300,000, and an Ugo Rondinone painting for $240,000. Michael Rosenfeld Gallery sold a Ruth Asawa sculpture for around $1m. The Los Angeles gallery Blum reported $1.1m in sales for works by multiple artists, including a large-scale Yoshitomo Nara ceramic sculpture, OTAFUKU No.0 (Moon-faced Woman No.0) (2007), which sold for $750,000.

At least four galleries—David Kordansky, James Cohan, Carlye Packer and Altman Siegel—reported entirely sold-out stands in the fair’s opening hours. David Kordansky’s stand features 16 works by Maia Cruz Palileo, priced from $8,000 to $80,000. “I’m so pleasantly surprised. It’s been an amazing day,” Kordansky says. “There’s so much tenderness, love and support. We’re seeing people we haven’t seen in years coming to support the gallery.”

The New York-based gallery Kaufmann Repetto sold a Katherine Bradford painting for between $80,000 and $100,000, and a collaborative work by the Los Angeles-based artist couple Magdalena Suarez Frimkess and Michael Frimkess sold in the same range. The gallery also sold a Corydon Cowansage painting for between $20,000 and $30,000, and a painting by the Pasadena-born artist Pae White for between $65,000 and $85,000.

Local galleries find support

Dealers in the fair’s Focus sector for younger galleries, overseen by Essence Harden (who is co-curating this year’s Made in LA biennial at the Hammer Museum), also notched early successes. The Culver City-based gallery Carlye Packer sold out its stand of works by Brandon Landers, with prices ranging from $16,000 to $54,000. The West Adams-based gallery Sow & Tailor sold three sculptures and three paintings by Shaniqwa Jarvis—one of which was jointly acquired by the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art—for prices ranging from $3,000 to $12,000. Nonaka-Hill sold several works by the late Japanese artist Sawako Goda for prices between $25,000 and $50,000.

The Los Angeles-based gallery Make Room reported placing works from its solo exhibition of Xin Liu, a young Chinese American artist, with several prominent private and museum collections, priced between $20,000 and $50,000 each, including the painting Primula Flowers (2024) to a major international family collection. Emilia Yin, the founder and director of the gallery, says she was happy to see so many people come out to support Los Angeles after feeling worried the fair would be cancelled.

The Hollywood gallery Nazarian Curcio sold four paintings by Summer Wheat for prices ranging from $40,000 to $70,000, as well as seven works by Vincent Pocisk priced between $7,000 and $30,000.

The global gallery Pace reported sales of works by Tara Donovan and Kylie Manning, as well as one of Robert Indiana’s sculptures, LOVE (Red Outside Blue Inside) (1966-96), for $500,000. The mega-gallery Hauser &
Wirth and the New York-based gallery Company, which are sharing a stand, sold four works by the Canadian painter Ambera Wellmann for a total take of $770,000.

The Parisian gallery Almine Rech reported that its colourful solo stand devoted to the Japanese painter Tomokazu Matsuyama had nearly sold out during the preview, with prices ranging from $100,000 to $600,000—four of the works sold went to institutional collections. Paul de Froment, a managing partner at the gallery, says the atmosphere at the fair is “charged with sympathy, optimism and a belief in art’s role when things feel fragile”.

The New York-based gallery James Cohan sold all the works on its stand—ceramic tile mosaics and paintings by Eamon Ore-Giron—with prices ranging from $30,000 to $125,000. One was acquired by an unspecified West Coast institution.

The New York- and London-based gallery Timothy Taylor nearly sold out its stand during the preview, finding homes for an Annie Morris sculpture (priced around $196,000) and a piece by the Turkish American artist Hayal Pozanti for $75,000. The New York-based gallery Ortuzar sold seven sculptures by the Brazilian Japanese artist Megumi Yuasa for prices between $20,000 and $125,000, with one going to a museum.

The San Francisco-based gallery Altman Siegel sold out its solo presentation of new oil paintings by Laeh Glenn, priced from $15,000 to $35,000. Another Bay Area gallery, Jessica Silverman, sold nearly half the work on its stand, including three works by Sadie Barnette for prices from $20,000 and $75,000. The gallery also found homes for works by Julie Buffalohead, Andrea Bowers Loie Hollowell and two sculptures by Rose B. Simpson—one of which was acquired by the Grinnell College Museum of Art in Iowa.

“Los Angeles is like a phoenix rising from the ashes,” says Jessica Silverman. “For us, it’s more than just a successful marketplace; it’s where we connect with our LA-based artists.”