On the evidence of its first few hours, Frieze L.A.’s fifth edition was perhaps the busiest yet. By noon on Thursday’s VIP day, aisles were approaching maximum capacity, with 12 p.m. ticketholders forced to wait as the late 10 a.m. guests continued to pour into the venue.
The fair, which takes place from February 29th to March 3rd at the Santa Monica Airport, hit a bustling peak early on and maintained its lively atmosphere throughout the day. And though the day started out dreary and cold, the sun peeked out by mid-afternoon and helped keep up the good spirits. One factor was undeniable from the offset: Transactions were aplenty. “Today has been our most successful first day at Frieze L.A. since the first year of the fair,” remarked Hauser & Wirth’s president Marc Payot.
With more than 95 exhibitors, the fair is smaller than the previous year’s tally of 120, with the organizers ditching its two-building model for a single tent, which possibly contributed to the jam-packed spaces. A-list celebrities, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert Downey Jr., Ariel Emanuel, Will Ferrell, Rob Lowe, and Owen Wilson, were spotted among VIP guests.
“Today, Frieze brought immense energy and a global art community to Santa Monica,” Christine Messineo, director of Frieze Americas, told Artsy. “Blue-chip galleries and first-time exhibitors brought exceptional works demonstrating the excitement the fair creates each year. It is an annual moment that brings together Los Angeles’s community of artists, gallerists, curators, and philanthropists rallying around a totally unique and growing arts and culture ecosystem.”
Across the fair, gallerists were in similarly positive spirits. “The first time I did a fair in Los Angeles in 2008, there was really this feeling that L.A. would probably never find its groove, but it feels really clear that L.A. has gone beyond that,” said New York–based gallerist James Fuentes, who opened an L.A. space last year. “It’s mandatory at this point—a mandatory stop. It’s been great to be able to see that evolution, and it makes us even more proud and happy to have a fixed location here.”
The purchase of a large-scale drawing by Richard Serra for $2 million at Gladstone Gallery led the VIP day’s reported sales. Other notable sales included the following:
- Thaddaeus Ropac reported the sale of a Robert Longo piece for $1.6 million and an Anselm Kiefer work for €1.3 million ($1.4 million).
- Hauser & Wirth made significant sales, including an Ed Clark painting for $950,000, a Charles Gaines work for $795,000, a Frank Bowling painting for $800,000, and a Rita Ackermann painting for $425,000.
- Roberts Projects sold an Amoako Boafo painting in the $300,000–$400,000 range and a Suchitra Mattai work for $60,000.
- David Zwirner’s sales included a Huma Bhabha sculpture for $650,000, two John McCracken sculptures priced from $450,000–$500,000 each, and a Steven Shearer painting for $480,000.
Check back on Monday for our full recap of reported sales. Here, we feature our 10 favorite booths from Frieze Los Angeles 2024.
Various Small Fires
Booth B8
With works by Brandon Ballengée, Jessie Homer French, The Harrison Studio, John Miller, and Sean Raspet
The works on view at Various Small Fires’s booth are piping hot. The floor and the back wall are both painted a bright red, catching the attention of the guests perusing the nearby aisles. The blood-red booth features a riveting group exhibition about humankind’s relationship with the environment. It all starts with an ecological artwork from The Harrisons (the late Helen Mayer and Newton Harrison), documented by a six-photograph installation on the right wall, Making Earth (1970) (1970–present).
On the back wall, the gallery features Louisiana-based artist and biologist Brandon Ballengée’s extinction-inspired series—nine portraits of extinct animals cut out, framed, and hung above urns that hold the ashes of the paper cutouts. Some source materials date back to the 17th century. Though the exhibition deals with troubling subjects, this work approaches the climate crisis as ultimately solvable. “This is climate optimism. This is world-building. This is belief in our power to collaborate with our planet,” senior director Ariel Lauren Pittman told Artsy.
Making Earth (1970), 1970-ongoing
The Harrisons
Various Small Fires
North Atlantic, 2023
Jessie Homer French
Various Small Fires
Meanwhile, the gallery is showing work from another working scientist, Sean Raspet, whose “Myofbrillar Tissue Scaffold” sculptural triptych holds glycerin preservatives and lab-grown fish, avian, and mammal proteins. These works, musing on the food of the future, place the unseen climate crisis technology in plain sight. On each wall, Jessie Homer French’s evocative fire paintings, North Atlantic and Drought (both 2023) command attention with their stark, unflinching portrayal of environmental devastation. All these works, with prices ranging up to $120,000, are a visceral reminder of environmental urgency, but they still signal a hopeful future.
“We were really thinking through how to sum up climate despair, climate optimism, all the feelings you could have about life on this planet and really presenting work that deals with climate in a serious way that's legible [and] easy to understand,” Pittman added.
James Fuentes
Booth 11
With works by Geoffrey Holder and Kikuo Saito
The disparate yet parallel legacies of Geoffrey Holder and Kikuo Saito are woven together in James Fuentes’s carefully curated booth, showcasing five works by Holder and one work from Saito. These painters shared a lifelong dedication to theater, a practice that informed their art—albeit in vastly different ways. Simultaneously, the gallery is presenting a solo exhibition for Holder at its Los Angeles space and set to open a Saito exhibition at its new Tribeca location next week.
“We tried to bring together two seemingly disconnected artists—Geoffrey Holder, who was from Trinidad and born in 1930, and Kuiko Saito, who was born in Tokyo in 1939,” said founder James Fuentes. “One artist is a representational painter, and the other artist is an abstract painter, but they were both connected through their commitment to theater. This show gave us an opportunity to create an unexpected curatorially sensitive conversation.”
Untitled, 1952
Geoffrey Holder
James Fuentes
Portrait of Carmen de Lavallade, 1956
Geoffrey Holder
James Fuentes
Symantro, 1995
Kikuo Saito
James Fuentes
Portrait of Girl, 1992
Geoffrey Holder
James Fuentes
Last Mac, 2004
Geoffrey Holder
James Fuentes
Saito’s painting Lizard’s Dance (2002), an abstract work against a cream-colored canvas, stands strong among Holder’s five figurative paintings. These five works, predominantly portraits of women, capture the artist’s nearly seven-decade career. The latest of them, Portrait of a Girl (1992), an image of a woman with a sheer white shirt, was sold to a trustee at MOCA Los Angeles. Fuentes noted that sales were strong: “We were able to turn a profit before day one just by the preview,” he told Artsy.
C L E A R I N G
Booth A15
With works by Kayode Ojo and Loïc Raguénès
Music is at the heart of C L E A R I N G’s dual exhibition of the young rising artist Kayode Ojo and the late Loïc Raguénès. Ojo’s sculptures, crafted from everyday items like dresses, instruments, and jewelry, transform these objects into a dialogue between luxury and deeper societal themes. His approach turns music stands into lifelike figures adorned with wigs and sparkling jewelry found on Amazon or Fashion Nova. The commingling of these accessories in works like Undressed (Sorayam Silver Los Angeles) (2024) invites viewers to reflect on the intersection of art, music, and identity.
“[Ojo] auditions the objects before he really decides to place them together and tries to figure out whether or not there is some alignment,” said Reilly Davidson, director of programming at the gallery. “He’s such an American ready-made artist through that idea of the endless scroll and the desire of being online.”
Undressed (Sorayama Silver Los Angeles), 2024
Kayode Ojo
C L E A R I N G
Project Gemini (Los Angeles), 2024
Kayode Ojo
C L E A R I N G
Likewise, Raguénès draws inspiration from the intersections between the rhythmic patterns of music and the natural landscapes of Brittany, France, where he spent his final years. His muted blue-green tempera paintings, Olearia, Erable rouge, Pin Noir d’Autriche, Hêtre pourpre, and Spirée japonaise dorée (all 2021), translate the motion and sound waves of music—specifically, those of French composer Erik Satie—into visual waves that slice across the canvas. These waves echo the undulating landscapes of Brittany, blending the essence of music seamlessly with the beauty of the natural world.
Casey Kaplan
Booth A10
With works by Jordan Casteel
New York stalwart Casey Kaplan made a striking impression near the fair’s entrance with a solo exhibition by Jordan Casteel. This booth features figurative works such as Transit (2023), a subway painting featuring a woman and a child, that have become central to the artist’s practice amid lesser-known still-life and landscape paintings, such as Craspedia (2024). Like most of Casteel’s work, the exhibition is focused on the idea of care.
“This body of work, for Jordan, is very much about cultivation and caretaking, whether that’s through cultivating her own landscape upstate in New York, through the garden pieces, and then combining that with these images of nurturing through these parental figures,” said Veronica Levitt, a director at the gallery.
Transit, 2023
Jordan Casteel
Casey Kaplan
Craspedia, 2024
Jordan Casteel
Casey Kaplan
Naima's Gift (Deon, Kym and Noah), 2023
Jordan Casteel
Casey Kaplan
Tulip, 2023
Jordan Casteel
Casey Kaplan
Holy Basil, 2024
Jordan Casteel
Casey Kaplan
Central to the exhibition is Naima’s Gift (Deon, Kym, and Noah) (2023), a portrait of a family standing among bright foliage inspired by her neighbors in upstate New York. This work was priced and sold at $450,000. Her other works are priced from $300,000–$450,000, except for Holy Basil (2024), a small purple canvas depicting a basil plant, which is priced at $45,000.
Make Room
Booth F3
With works by Yeni Mao
Among the Focus section of the fair dedicated to single-artist booths, Los Angeles–based Make Room arrived with one of the fair’s most striking installations, a presentation of Chinese American sculptor Yeni Mao. Titled “Freemartins,” the exhibition features seven sculptures crafted from steel frameworks embellished with elements of porcelain, leather, and volcanic rock.
“It’s a very ambitious project that we put together,” the gallery’s founder Emilia Yin told Artsy. These pieces delve into the history and stories of the tunnels beneath the Mexico–U.S. border town of Mexicali, once a refuge for Chinese and Chinese Mexican communities. Through Mao’s skilled use of materials and form, “Freemartins” not only reflects on the past but also engages with themes of identity, migration, and the intersection of architecture and human experience.
fig 39.3 blue bear, 2024
Yeni Mao
Make Room
fig 39.4 reforma 306, 2024
Yeni Mao
Make Room
“We were interested in how he challenged and used material in his practice because he was trained and was working in the construction industry and architecture industry for many years,” Yin said. “The plates in the sculptures, they’re floor plans of this tunnel that he measured—he went [to the Mexicali tunnels] and did the measurements himself.”
These central works are accompanied by several wall works, including two screenprints on wool felt with grommets, titled fig 14.2 mountain (territory) and fig 14.4 river (territory) (both 2017). Like the steel sculptures, this work reappropriates industrial materials—in this case, used to dampen noise on construction sites—to commemorate the artist’s heritage, resilience, and the complex layers of human geography.
Hannah Traore
Booth F10
With works by James Perkins
Located at the corner at one of the fair’s busiest intersections in the Focus section, James Perkins’s solo exhibition with New York gallery Hannah Traore is a rejuvenating stop for guests. Here, the artist presents 14 wall and floor sculptures made from several types of wood and stone, drawing inspiration from the works of land artists like Michael Heizer and Robert Irwin. Perkins developed his distinctive technique by wrapping silk around two-by-four wood planks and burying them in the sand for up to two years, allowing nature to act as his paintbrush. The intricate patterns and textures viewers see on the silk are entirely the work of natural elements, not crafted by hand.
“What I think is so amazing about James is he really is continuing the tradition of land art, but he’s adding his own flair,” founder Hannah Traore told Artsy. “Land art has a little bit of a problematic history, and it’s really interesting to have a Black man inserting himself, but also really adding to the conversation and adding a whole new perspective—a whole new process.”
A Forest of Love, 2021
James Perkins
Hannah Traore
Purple Rain, 2022
James Perkins
Hannah Traore
I Am Rusty, 2022
James Perkins
Hannah Traore
Moonlight on the Ocean, 2023
James Perkins
Hannah Traore
Perkins intends this body of work to act as a unifying entry point for people to engage with each other and the environment. These works, such as the triangular A Forest of Love (2021), covered with bright green silk, mean to offer a symbol of the most unifying force: the Earth. These bigger works, priced from $28,000–$46,700, are shown along with four smaller teal-colored works, priced at $7,300.
Pace Gallery
Booth D10
With works by Li Songsong, Alicja Kwade, Gordon Parks, Torkwase Dyson, Loie Hollowell, Robert Irwin, Glenn Kaino, Maysha Mohamedi, Robert Longo, Pablo Picasso, Lynda Benglis, Tara Donovan, and Louise Nevelson
Pace Gallery’s vibrant presentation illuminates the exceptional talent of the gallery’s female artists, offering a glimpse into its diverse and compelling 2024 program. On the outside wall of the booth is Mika Tajima’s large-scale weaving, Negative Entropy (Dazaifu Tenmangu, Morning Ritual, Purple, Hex) (2024). This work is among the series featured in the artist’s recent solo exhibition at the gallery’s Chelsea location this January.
Sculptural works are also highlighted, with works by Alicja Kwade and Tara Donovan among the standouts. “I am so excited to see the booth bring together several sculptures by women artists—namely a significant historical work by Lynda Benglis, a personal hero of mine,” said Colleen Grennan, senior director at Pace Gallery in Los Angeles.
Treble Bar (Minor), 2023
Lynda Benglis
Pace Gallery
Stratagem I, 2024
Tara Donovan
Pace Gallery
Other highlights include Loie Hollowell’s Split Orbs in yellow-orange, purple, red, and blue (2023), which sold for $450,000, and Maysha Mohamedi’s 2024 painting Hobo Kills Man, which sold for $70,000. The Los Angeles–based artist, who joined the gallery in 2022, is shown among several other cross-generation Californian artists, like Glenn Kaino and Robert Irwin.
Kasmin
Booth E14
With works by vanessa german
vanessa german’s solo exhibition with Kasmin marks something of a homecoming. Accompanied by audio “prayers” recorded by the artist, a set of new rose quartz sculptures leverage their translucent pink hues and reflective qualities to form a visually arresting ensemble. Among a dozen sculpted heads, the booth features various objects, including a machine gun, entitled THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS, or, THE GUN THAT TURNED ITSELF INTO A BIRD (2024), and high heel boots, entitled WALK IN BEAUTY (2022).
“It’s really been a magnet,” director Nick Olney said, remarking on the massive crowds pulled into the back corner of Frieze by the bright pink exhibition. Designed with Los Angeles, the birthplace of West Coast hip-hop and german’s childhood city, in mind, her latest collection brings cosmic themes to life using symbols from 1980s street culture, including sculptures of skateboards and a boombox. These works quickly caught the attention of collectors: By the end of the VIP day, the gallery sold 10 works, priced from $25,000–$65,000.
THE LOVERS DREAMING THE SAME DREAM IN THEIR LUMINOUS FIBERS, 2024
vanessa german
Kasmin
HOPE, 2024
vanessa german
Kasmin
cup runneth, 2023
vanessa german
Kasmin
skateboard memorial to tyre nichols who screamed out for his own mama to come for him while the police were jumping on his back and taking his name out of his soul and making him dead with their own looseness of being and in the brutality of this separation unaliving him for no reason other than _________. Well. Or, skateboard as grief., 2023
vanessa german
Kasmin
“To present this here is meaningful for her because it’s a deeply personal body of work, and to have that tie to her personal history, to be here in L.A., and to present this to the world is special,” said Olney. “It’s really a powerful evolution in her work and her sculptural language.…To see people’s reactions to how they’re interacting with the work has been really thrilling.”
Proyectos Monclova
Booth E13
With works by Aydeé Rodríguez López and David Montaño Roque
Tucked away far from the main entrance to the fair, Mexico City gallery Proyectos Monclova presents a compelling two-person show of artists from Costa Chica of Guerrero, Mexico—Aydeé Rodríguez López and David Montaño Roque—in its arresting orange booth. Here, the gallery presents six oil paintings from López, depicting the daily life, landscapes, and heroes of Afro-Mexican communities, all encased by intricately designed poplar wooden frames.
In día de muertos (2023), the artist depicts a small community within a lush landscape. At the forefront, five figures in costumes participate in the “dance of the devil,” a traditional ceremony of rebellion performed in the Costa Chica region of Guerrero and Oaxaca which emerged as a response to the oppression of Africans in Mexico. The masks portrayed in these paintings are brought to life by Roque’s sculptures Máscara de la Danza de los Diablos 16 and Máscara de la Danza de los Diablos12 (both 2023).
“The mask is used with the dance of the devil, but that is not something satanic,” said Israel Flores, a sales representative for the gallery. “It’s just something that they make to have attention from the conquerors, to give them freedom and better conditions of work.”
The prices of the works available range from $10,000–$30,000. By early afternoon on the VIP day, Flores shared that “70% of the [works] are already sold.”
Nazarian / Curcio
Booth F9
With works by Widline Cadet
Sòti nan gran lanmou (From Such Great Love), 2023
Widline Cadet
Nazarian / Curcio
An Elusive Echo #1 (Green), 2024
Widline Cadet
Nazarian / Curcio
Nazarian / Curcio founder Seth Curcio first came across Haitian artist Widline Cadet’s work during the artist’s 2001 residency at the Studio Museum in Harlem. Currently residing in Los Angeles, Cadet teaches photography at UCLA. As she has moved further from her home country, her work has evolved to include a contemplative element, aiming to forge connections between her past and present, employing architectural design, archival video, and photography in this solo presentation.
“She’s really looking at memory, storytelling, myth, family archive images to sort of recreate and connect with a land that she doesn’t have access to readily,” said Curcio during VIP day.
Ant yè ak demen (Between Yesterday and Tomorrow), 2023
Widline Cadet
Nazarian / Curcio
The central piece, Ant yè ak demen (Between Yesterday and Tomorrow) (2023), features a 3.9-foot-by-5.8-foot print of three ghostly figures facing away from the camera. A protruding screen is affixed to the top right of the work, where a video of archival family images, many of which are captured on her phone, plays on a loop. Guests can put on headphones to become fully immersed in the piece, which is priced at $45,000.
Two of the booth’s most notable works face each other on the left and right walls of the booth. An Elusive Echo #1 (Green) and An Elusive Echo #2 (Orange) (both 2023) are prints covered by breezeway block patterns—an architectural fence common in both Haiti and Los Angeles. This partially covered print evokes a sensation of longing, where one can see their home, though blocked by these barriers. The works across the booth are priced from $2,800–$45,000.
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