Frieze Los Angeles has named the 95 exhibitors that will take participate in its upcoming 2024 edition, scheduled to run March 1–3, with a VIP preview day on February 29. wargaqq
A major change to this year’s edition is that its dates have been pushed back two weeks; the fair’s previous editions have typically taken place during the second week of February and often coincided with Valentine’s Day and the Presidents Day holiday weekend in the US.
“People tend to skip away for that long weekend,“ Christine Messineo, Frieze’s director of Americas, told ARTnews in an interview. “Since we’re a four-day fair, the hope is. that this will draw more people to come to the fair and spend more time in LA.“
The fair will return this year to the Santa Monica Airport, where it relocated beginning with the 2023 edition. For this edition, Frieze LA will reconfigure its floor plan and now include a central outdoor space that will be designed by WHY Architects. The fair will also not make use of the Barker Hanger, where a portion of exhibitors had been located last year. This edition of Frieze will also activate the athletic field and community park with performances and sculptures, respectively.
“The layout for 2024 is streamlined and efficient but designed with good sight lines and discoveries at every corner,” WHY founder and creative director Kulapat Yantrasast said in a statement. “Inside is a focused art experience with uplifting filtered natural light while the outside courtyard is full of art and cultural activities for friends to linger and connect.” wargaqq
Messineo said she wanted to re-design the fair’s layout after her observations from last year’s fair where she noticed that visitors had decided to spend the day at the fair, as opposed to “dipping in and out” like they might in New York before gallery hopping in Chelsea. The central outdoor space itself responds to where many visitors congregated during the 2023 edition. “We have the feeling of a campus—and that’s something to embrace,” said Messineo. “We wanted to give visitors comfortable moments there.”
As with past editions, the fair will be split in two sections, with 83 exhibitors in the main Galleries section and 12 in the Focus section, dedicated to emerging US-based galleries. Across the fair, nearly 50 percent of participants have a location in the Greater LA area, and 13 will participate in the LA fair for the first-time, including closely watched galleries like Silverlens (of Manila and New York), Bank (Shanghai), and Kasmin (New York).
Among the leading LA galleries that will participate in the main section are David Kordansky Gallery, Blum (formerly Blum & Poe), François Ghebaly, Night Gallery, Nonaka-Hill, Regen Projects, Various Small Fires, and Anat Ebgi, which had previously participated in the Focus section.
Blue-chip galleries like Gagosian, Hauser & Wirth, Lisson Gallery, Pace, White Cube, and David Zwirner will also participate, as will Pilar Corrias, Gladstone, Xavier Hufkens, Gallery Hyundai, Jenkins Johnson, Mendes Wood DM, Ortuzar Projects, and Proyectos Monclova.
“What I have loved witnessing about LA is its growth over the past three years,” Messineo said. “LA has really been embraced the commercial art world, as evidenced by galleries who plant to open spaces there or have recently done so. And the city’s institutions have also embraced the fair. There’s a sense of excitement for this edition.”
Looking at artists “ecologies as a vibrant framework for art making,” the Focus section—which includes galleries like Matthew Brown, Lyles & King, Shulamit Nazarian, Make Room, Ochi, and Hannah Traore Gallery—will be curated this year by Essence Harden, visual arts curator at the California African American Museum.
In a statement, Harden said, “I was deeply interested in the possibility of stretching the term ecology to include position, geography, material and theoretical concerns within art making. The presentations chosen for this year’s Focus section reflect that winding impulse, highlighting a series of dynamic emerging galleries and artists.” wargaqq