Frieze Los Angeles’ Opening Day Buzzes With Sold-Out Booths and Celebrity Sightings

Frieze Los Angeles took off on the V.I.P opening day on Thursday, Feb. 16, at its new space at the historic Santa Monica Airport. The expansive show, featuring more than 120 galleries from 22 counties, is the biggest L.A. edition of the famed art fair to date, and celebrities dressed accordingly.

Gwyneth Paltrow wore a pair of trusty trainers to traverse the mammoth fair — which sprawls over both the Barker Hangar and a specially designed tent — as did Princess Eugenie, granddaughter of Queen Elizabeth II, who is a director at global gallery Hauser & Wirth.

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Other notable attendees included Shailene Woodley, Heidi Klum, Bobby Flay, Catherine Keener, Jared Leto, producer Ronnie Sassoon, Christopher Waltz, Owen Wilson, mogul Lynda Resnick, Justine Bateman, John McEnroe, Lionel Ritchie, Margot Robbie, writer/producer/collector Maria Arena Bell, Endeavor’s Patrick Whitesell, WME’s Dan Aloni, CAA’s Joel Lubin, producer David Hoberman, and Tyler the Creator, flanked by two bodyguards.

At the pre-fair VIP breakfast, guests noshed on Courage bagels and sipped on mimosas among the historic planes at the Museum of Flying. Many attendees admitted that they had not gotten enough sleep, having made the rounds at the countless pre-fair soirees the night before, including ones thrown by David Kordansky Gallery at the Hotel Bel-Air and Serpentine Galleries at a private home. (For a guide to Frieze Week events, click here.)

In her opening remarks, Christine Messineo, director of Americas for Frieze (also in hip trainers), paid tribute to the fair’s electric atmosphere. “There is so much that goes into the making of the fair,” she said. “I’ve watched as the tent was erected three weeks ago, trucks delivering crates of art to our galleries over the last three days. A plane, towed onto the tarmac and wrapped with quilts from Ghana. There is so much work that goes into the fair. The architects, the team at Frieze, the gallerists, our collectors. But what makes Frieze come alive are all of you, the wonderful people in this room and the lasting community we build together.”

Santa Monica mayor Gleam Davis also expressed her delight that the fair had moved to SaMo, a long-time center of the arts. “We did a cultural capital study a number of years ago that showed that more than 50 percent of the folks who live in Santa Monica earn their living from the arts,” Davis told the crowd. “And what that tells you is that this is not just a once in time event. This is part of our city’s DNA.”

At 10 a.m., COVID lockdowns seemed worlds away, as hundreds of VIP collectors flooded into the show. “You walk in and see all these art collectors who are getting in at 10 o’clock in the morning on Thursday — just imagine what the rest of the weekend’s going to be like. This is the who’s who,” said WME co-chairman Richard Weitz (WME parent company Endeavor owns a majority stake in Frieze.)

Before the preview began, word was already floating around that many works had been presold. “I realize what the secret is,” musical legend and American Idol host Lionel Ritchie joked with The Hollywood Reporter, “The secret now is I have to come at five in the morning if I want to buy anything, because by the time I walk in, they keep going, ‘I’m so sorry, it’s gone, I’m so sorry, it’s gone.'” (No earlier entry times existed yesterday, but many collectors are in touch with galleries to put dibs on pieces before the fair even opens.)

But many in the happy, buzzing crowd — clad in colorful designer outfits and stopping every two minutes to say hello to colleagues and old friends, often causing logjams — were more than happy to admire what was at the fair as well as its new digs. “I think it’s beautifully installed. I think it’s fun to walk between the sites,” WME partner Nancy Josephson exclaimed. “We already went to the Barker Hangar and came here, it’s a beautiful walk. You see [artist Basil Kincaid’s quilt covered] airplane, you see a couple of art structures, it’s fabulous.” (Kincaid’s work is included in the outdoor-sculpture presentation Frieze Projects: Now Playing, which is open to the public with free admission.)

There was also a sense of pride in Los Angeles increasingly becoming a major artistic center in the world. “The quality of the work every year is going up, globally speaking,” said artist and restaurateur Michael Chow of Mr. Chow fame. “But there is still much to catch up.” However, when asked for his favorite works, he was a little more cryptic: “You can’t have all great art. It’s statistically not possible. You don’t have too many Michael Jordans.”

In search of the art world’s new Michael Jordan, one particularly exciting part of the fair was “Focus,” a section of the fair dedicated to emerging galleries and featuring solo presentations by artists such as Greg Breda, Kyoko Idetsu, Edgar Ramirez, Sophie Wahlquist, and Hana Ward.

As Casey Lesser, director of content at Artsy, noted, the collecting world’s enormous interest in emerging artists remains strong, as does the rediscovery of once under-appreciated female artists. “It’s also an interesting time for figuration because I think it’s oversaturated the market, and now there’s kind of this turn towards abstraction,” she said.

While one attendee got a sharp rebuke for touching a sculpture at the Jessica Silverman booth, and more gripes were heard about the number of pre-sold works and the long line for parking, the day overall was one of fast talking and sky-high sales. David Kordansky Gallery sold out its booth of works by painter Chase Hall. Other sellout booths included works by Rick Lowe at Gagosian, and a booth devoted to the artist Doron Langberg at Victoria Miro.

The largest sale of the day was a $3.4 million painting by Henry Taylor sold by Hauser & Wirth. Other blue-chip sales included a work by Lisa Yuskavage that was bought by a European institution for $1 million at David Zwirner. At Thaddaeus Ropac, a Robert Rauschenberg went for $1.7 million, while a painting by Alex Katz sold for $1.5 million. At the Pace booth, the gallery sold a slew of artworks ranging from $45,000 to $2 million, including new pieces by artists including Adrian Ghenie, Yoshitomo Nara and Matthew Day Jackson.

Also on Feb. 16’s opening day, in an evening ceremony, the Deutsche Bank Frieze Los Angeles Film Award, which supports emerging filmmakers, was given out with Irene Gil-Ramon selected as the 2023 winner.

Frieze opens to the public earlier today and runs through Feb. 19; four other art shows, the LA Art Show, Felix Art Fair, Spring/Break Art Show and Photo Forward Los Angeles are also taking place concurrently around the city. “I think L.A. is actually kind of more the center than New York, and it’s funny. My husband’s family started the New Museum, they’re big collectors. They’re here and able to see what’s going on here,” Josephson also told THR. “I mean, they’ll go to Frieze New York too, but Frieze L.A. is very special.”

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