The organisers of the Frieze art fair said on Friday (17 January) that they will proceed with the 2025 edition of their Los Angeles fair (20-23 February), set to take place at Santa Monica Airport six weeks after deadly wildfires swept through the city.
“Our hearts are with everyone affected by the devastating fires in Los Angeles,” a Frieze spokesperson said. “Since the fair’s founding six years ago, Frieze has been proud to support and be part of this vibrant community. The challenges the city is currently facing only strengthen our commitment to work alongside the community to rebuild and recover together.”
In addition to the spokesperson’s comments, Frieze circulated a collection of statements by artists, dealers, curators and arts administrators based in or with ties to Los Angeles. Among them is the artist Kelly Akashi, whose home and studio in the Altadena neighbourhood were completely destroyed by the Eaton fire.
“I don’t want the economic impact of this to spread further and affect other artists,” Akashi said. “I am here to celebrate other artists’ accomplishments and am personally not insulted by the promotion of their work. I want my community to be healthy, and need them to be supported so that they can extend that care to me and other people impacted by the fires.”
The curator Essence Harden—who is co-curating this year’s edition of the Hammer Museum’s Made in LA biennial and returning to organise Frieze Los Angeles’s Focus sector for emerging galleries—added in a statement: “I love Los Angeles; it’s my home, and my life has been made possible because of the generosity, care and people of this city. Frieze is an ecosystem of contractors, fabricators, artists, gallerists, collectors, institutions, non-profits, art handlers, small businesses and a world of people who find financial and social support within it. There is a need and will here for art to still happen, for possibility to emerge amongst immense loss and grief.”
Frieze is one of the founding contributors to a $12m relief fund launched earlier this week by local, national and global organisations, galleries and museums. The fair’s spokesperson added: “Together with our participants and partners, we are developing initiatives to aid recovery efforts and will share more details soon.”
The organisers of the LA Art Show, which is marking its 30th anniversary this year, also confirmed on Friday that they will move ahead with their 2025 edition. The lineup of participating galleries is still being finalised in light of the wildfires, and organisers are working to identify a disaster-relief charity to support through a donation. They add that “we’ve had significant feedback from the community, galleries and artists that they feel it’s important to move forward with that sense of ‘community’ being more important than ever”.
Frieze Los Angeles and the LA Art Show’s openings will come less than two months after a string of deadly wildfires swept through parts of Los Angeles. The fires’ toll is still coming into full view, but they destroyed more than 7,500 structures and killed at least 27 people while burning more than 28,000 acres—an area larger than the island of Manhattan or the entire city of San Francisco. The neighbourhoods most severely affected include Altadena, a historically Black area that is home to many artists and arts workers, as well as Pacific Palisades, a wealthy area where many collectors and celebrities lived.
Many artists’ homes and studios, as well as art spaces, were either damaged or completely destroyed in the wildfires. Local, national and international organisations have launched funds and fundraising campaigns to provide relief for local artists, arts workers and organisations.
This year’s edition of Frieze Los Angeles was previously due to feature 101 exhibitors, including most of the world’s biggest commercial galleries—Gagosian, Gladstone, Marian Goodman Gallery, Hauser & Wirth, Pace Gallery, White Cube and David Zwirner—and a large contingent of galleries from Southern California. When the fair’s original slate of exhibitors was revealed in November, nearly half of the participating galleries had spaces in Los Angeles.
This will be the first edition of a Frieze fair to be staged since the British event and media firm’s parent company, Endeavor—the Beverly Hills-headquartered sports and entertainment conglomerate—revealed last autumn that it is exploring the potential sale of Frieze as well as two tennis tournaments it owns. Endeavor has been the majority owner of Frieze since 2016 and went public on the New York Stock Exchange in 2021. Previously, Frieze’s co-founders Matthew Slotover and Amanda Sharp had retained a 30% stake, but now the company is fully owned by Endeavor.
Frieze Los Angeles was the first new fair launched under the Frieze banner after Endeavor’s 2016 acquisition, followed by Frieze Seoul’s debut in 2022. In 2023, Frieze acquired fairs in the US’s two other biggest cities: The Armory Show in New York and Expo Chicago.
This year, in addition to the long-running satellite fairs Felix and Spring Break, Frieze Los Angeles will be joined by Santa Monica Post Office. The new boutique fair, founded by the Los Angeles-based dealer Chris Sharp, will feature 26 commercial galleries and non-profit spaces exhibiting in an Art Deco former post office in downtown Santa Monica, a short drive from Frieze.
- Frieze Los Angeles, 20-23 February 2025, Santa Monica Airport
