Frieze LA’s Special Projects, hosted in three different booths, are among the strongest presentations at this edition, with fundraising efforts for fire recovery woven throughout the fair. London-based dealer Victoria Miro has forgone her gallery presentation and instead handed off her booth to various galleries, with all funds from sales going directly to the LA Arts Community Fire Relief Fund.
Frieze LA has also collaborated with the Black Trustees Alliance for Land Memories: Voices of Altadena, a project that gathers oral histories of several artists who lost their Altadena homes in the devastating Eaton fire in January as a way to “uplift and preserve collective memories of the historically Black and culturally rich community of Altadena,” per a wall text. In the work, Asher Hartman recalls how the “accepting, diverse community” of Altadena makes it feel like a small mountain town. Peter Kim and Alice Könitz get emotional when they ask each other to recall their favorite rooms in their now-destroyed home. Dominique Moody powerfully states that, core to Altadena’s spirit, is “the connection between everyday life and the experience of creative thought and vision.” This powerful collection of voices is not to be missed.
Artist Tanya Aguiñiga’s AMBOS (Art Made Between Opposite Sides) has been a long-time nonprofit collaborator at Frieze LA. For this year’s fair, the collective, which focuses on providing care to communities in the borderlands through art and activism, has fabricated ceramic fruits that are sold from a fruit cart (accompanied by a print showing the sketches for these works in the colors of the trans flag). The pieces were all made with migrants, many of whom are trans women who were awaiting asylum hearings in Mexico. (Since the works were made, all these hearing have been canceled by the Trump administration.) Behind them are several hats and beanies, with phrases like DEFUND ICE, TRANS IS BEAUTIFUL, and MAKE VAGINA DENTATA AGAIN. During the opening hours of the fair, they were selling fast, with funds going to support AMBOS. All of the works, it goes without saying, are a direct response to the current presidential administration’s executive orders on trans rights and ongoing deportations of undocumented immigrants.
