Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in On Balance, the ARTnews newsletter about the art market and beyond. Sign up here to receive it every Wednesday.
“I was actually surprised, kind of shocked, when I got the email from Frieze that said they were moving forward with the [LA] fair,” a VIP fairgoer told me over drinks a few weeks before Frieze Los Angeles was set to open. “It feels strange after the fires to fly over there, get a hotel, get cabs everywhere. It’s climate thing, isn’t it? Doesn’t that feel wrong?”
In mid-January, as wildfires continued to devastate parts of the city, Frieze emailed its VIP mailing list to confirm that this week’s fair would indeed open its doors. For many in New York, this reality had still had not quite sunk in. Based on the images coming in from the wildfires, LA resembled more of a burnt-out dystopian future, than a sunny locale to shop for high-priced art.
Among the tips and factoids, I heard from different sources: “Bring a mask, the air quality will be terrible.” “Don’t drink the water—motorcycles have melted into the ground.” “I heard the highways are still closed.”
By the end of January, the Palisades and Eaton fires had collectively burned more than 37,000 acres of land, blackened more than 1,500 structures, and claimed 29 lives, according to the New York Times.
In its email to VIPs, Frieze reiterated that the LA fair plays a “key role as a place for creativity, connection, and resilience,” with this edition serving “as an opportunity to stand with the community in its time of need.” The decision, the email continued, was made “after careful consideration and extensive conversations with galleries, partners, and city-wide stakeholders.”
It would seem that the LA art world not only agrees with the fair’s role in aiding the community here, but that any East Coast twitchiness about Frieze going ahead is rather questionable, half-baked even.
“There are endless stories of people, artists, and art workers who suffered direct devastation because of these fires,” veteran LA dealer Tim Blum told ARTnews. “And every one of them will tell you that, listen, the city wants this. The city needs this. It’s not dangerous to be here and you’re not taking away space.”
Blum pointed to the level of post-fire activity in the city: the Hammer Museum opened its much anticipated Alice Coltrane show, while the Grammys, benefit concerts, and Lakers games have gone on, undisturbed. “People are back. Everything is happening. Coming here provides a big vote of confidence for LA in general and for the art world specifically.”
To what extent the energy Blum mentions will translate into a successful edition of Frieze, won’t be tallied until the fair tent on the grounds of the Santa Monica airport is folded up, though rumblings of dithering attendance from the collector class have been heard both in the US and across the pond.
A view of Altadena Community Church which was destroyed in the Eaton Fire as dusk falls on February 14.
Getty Images
One art dealer with galleries in Europe and Asia told me that several collectors from the Midwest have decided to skip this year’s LA edition, adding that “people easily become hysterical in the face of bad news.” A planned patron trip hosted by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., has supposedly been cancelled. When asked, a spokesperson for the museum declined to comment. Another dealer told me that there is talk that some collectors, still feeling the fatigue from last year’s hectic fair calendar and auction square dance, are using the fires as an excuse to skip a fair that some see as less important than its East Coast counterparts. Multiple dealers said on background that no one was expecting strong sales this year.
Commenters on the most recent edition of Tim Schneider’s Grey Market newsletter had heavy thoughts about the fair’s decision, which Schneider himself described as “divisive.” Bianca Bova, a curator and critic, wrote that the fair’s decision to push forward essentially put the art dealers “who paid their booth fees in good faith” in the position of “simply eat[ing] the costs associated with participating” when it’s unlikely the fair will be a lucrative affair. “[It] feels like setting them up to fail.”
Another observer, identified by the Instagram handle @boughtinatauction, questioned the environmental and social ethics. “[O]ne must consider whether proceeding with a high-profile, luxury-driven event in the wake of an environmental crisis signals a form of cultural myopia.” When presented with this argument, more than a few of art dealers told ARTnews that stance was not only performative but also slightly embarrassing. “If that’s your stance, I get it,” Blum said. “But then don’t go to Miami. Don’t fly to Europe. Climate change doesn’t happen in a vacuum.”
Air quality forecasts for the span of the fair put pollution levels in Los Angles at only six points higher than in New York City, and the average in both cities falls neatly in the “good” category according to IQAir, an air purification and monitoring company. (Thursday in LA, the day Frieze opens, is the only outlier, where the air quality peaks into the moderate category.)
In an aerial view, thousands of burned homes lie in ruins as a powerful atmospheric river storm breaks on February 14.
Getty Images
New York dealer Alexander Gray is a staunch believer in the Los Angeles cause. He wrote an impassioned letter to his clients, urging them to be in Los Angeles for art fair week. “The feeling of helplessness has been overwhelming for those of us who want to help in the moment,” Gray wrote. “What can we do? We can show up.”
Like Blum, Gray said his understanding is that not only are there plenty of hotels in the city to accommodate visitors, but that to visit would be a contribution to the local economy, both art-wise and more generally. He also said that most of the collectors in the city had been paid out by insurance, and many are eager to replace things lost to the fires, a sentiment also echoed by Blum.
“Let’s not forget that the overriding reason all of us do art fairs are relationships,” Gray, who has participated since the inaugural 2019 edition of Frieze LA, told ARTnews by phone. “And sometimes the transactions lead to relationships, sure, but more often relationships lead to transactions. I really think that this is when we’re going to see the best of the relational aspects of the fair and the power of this convening mechanism that we need more than ever.”
Those relationships come at a hefty cost, especially for galleries who depend on sales at fairs to fund their program throughout the year. At least eight galleries that were on the official exhibitor list in January no longer appear to be participating in the fair, including Seoul’s Gallery Hyundai; Jenkins Johnson Gallery, of San Francisco and New York; Mexico City’s OMR, and Various Small Fires, which is headquartered in LA and has spaces in Seoul and Dallas. (None of the aforementioned galleries returned a request for comment.)
Atmosphere at Frieze LA at the Santa Monica Airport on February 29, 2024 in Los Angeles, California.
River Callaway for ARTnews
VSF, which opens an exhibition for Mark Yang on Tuesday, may be the outlier. In an email blast on January 23, the gallery said it would take a hiatus from all fairs in 2025 in an effort to “take action to dramatically reduce the emissions footprint of our business.”
The letter continued, “We strongly believe that we can continue to do the work of effectively representing artists, making their work visible and salient to the global arts community, and dramatically reduce our carbon footprint by availing ourselves of smart uses of technology and a strategic approach to shipping and travel.”
Blue-chip European dealer Thaddaeus Ropac added a bit of pragmatism to his feelings of journeying to LA this week. “There was a moment where we were of course considering not going, but we always said if it goes ahead, we will go,” Ropac told ARTnews. “But ultimately, we felt if the art community wants us to go, we will be there despite not knowing what to expect.”
That sense of uncertainty could be seen as a benefit. Art fairs can be monotonous and overbearing. An element of surprise can be exciting.
LA dealer Carlye Packer, who is participating in both Frieze and the Felix Art Fair at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, said she expects the turnout at Frieze to be something special, or at least, out of the ordinary. “I’m excited about both fairs because we are living in such a bizarre time,” she said.
“And I think like interesting things happen in bizarre times. People are more open to ideas and have few expectations. There’s a lawless, Wild West vibe in the air, and I think that’s something we should lean in to.”
