Frieze celebrates its sixth edition in Los Angeles this year. An event designed to celebrate art in all its forms, but also the exceptional dynamic culture of the city. The Los Angeles art scene has been booming for the past five years, with dozens of new galleries setting up shop. 

Over 100 galleries, established and emerging, from some 20 countries, will present, as last year at Santa Monica Airport, the works of their artists to an increasingly international audience, made up of collectors, celebrities, movies and fashion industry. Among this year’s new galleries, Southern Guild, a gallery founded in 2008 in South Africa by Trevyn and Julia McGowen will be one of the attractions. Southern Guild has opened a year ago in the Melrose Hill neighborhood, making it the first in South Africa to open a permanent gallery space in the U.S.

Frieze will also see the artists of London’s Timothy Taylor Gallery and Rome’s Galleria Lorcan O’Neill exhibited for the first time. The Tilton Gallery’s exhibition dedicated to Noah Purifoy, the famous artist and co-founder of the Watts Tower art center, will unveil his sculptures and assemblages created in the Joshua Tree desert between 1989 and 2004. 

Frieze’s eagerly awaited Focus section, curated by Essence Harden, also co-curator for “Made in L.A 2025,” focuses on U.S. galleries that have been in operation for 12 years or less. Since 2023, this event has been sponsored by the Italian brand Stone Island, controlled by Moncler Group. The brand has awarded several grants to galleries including, this year, Bel Ami, Dominique Gallery, Make Room, Sow & Tailor and Superposition Gallery. 

As always, with the influx of collectors and thousands of creatives from all over the world, Los Angeles museums and art venues are organizing presentations during Frieze week that are sure to get people talking. ‘What Remains Behind’ is the first institutional solo show in the city by iconic artist Helmut Lang. The former fashion designer, who sold his brand to Fast Retailing in 2005, will fill the rooms of the Schindler House at the MAK Center for Art and Architecture in West Hollywood with abstract steel sculptures.
 
“The presence of Lang’s sculptures transforms each of the storied rooms into echo-chambers reverberating ideas of materialized humanity across concrete, wood and glass,” said curator Neville Wakefield.

“Proximity and aspect constantly change. Like emotions, they are fugitive, restless and refuse to settle into singular meanings and forms. But beneath these surface impressions is the undertow of darker sexualized forms of desire, a less palpable but more powerful energy field that forces us to confront the inherent tension between the body, the objects, the gaze and the architecture that contains them. Just as all art is manifest thought, so these works are extroversions of interior conditions.”
 
Among the other exhibitions that should be of interest to the fashion world, one organized by Albertz Benda Gallery Los Angeles is dedicated to Western culture. “Saddle Up: Artistic Journeys Through Cowboy Culture” brings together a young generation of artists who are making their mark on the idea of the West in their practice.

“The American West continues to capture the imagination,” explained Devon Dejardin, curator of the exhibition. “The values derived from the cowboy ethic, with its spirit of independence and rugged individualism, connection to the land and immediate experience of the beauty and power of nature, have resonated with generations around the world. This influence can be felt in popular culture, including fashion, art and music, with country music dominating the charts”.

Invited by the Gagosian gallery in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles-born painter Alex Israel will be one of the personalities to be seen during this Los Angeles art week. Born in Los Angeles in 1982, Israel has already collaborated with Louis Vuitton to create a line of perfumes exploring Californian culture, as well as with Rimowa and BMW. During Frieze and until March 22, he will present an exhibition of his latest “painted streetscapes”, entitled “Noir.”
 
Particularly popular in the fashion sphere, David Kordansky Gallery will present the paintings of artist Maia Cruz Palileo, while Jeffrey Deitch Gallery will unveil the work of Nina Chanel Abney, known for her vibrant use of color and layered narratives. Richard Saltoun Gallery will present the work of Greta Schödl. For her most recent works, featured in Richard Saltoun’s solo exhibition, Schödl works with blocks of marble, which she inscribes with repeated text, a process she describes as “clothing the surface with her name”.

Alongside Frieze, traditional Los Angeles museums will also have plenty to show, including the “Imagining Black Diasporas: 21st-Century Art and Poetics” exhibition at LACMA, featuring works by 60 artists working in Africa, Europe and the Americas.

Musician and artist Alice Coltrane will headline the Hammer Museum’s “Monument Eternal’s” exhibition until May 4, 2025. The exhibition, which celebrates the artist’s career, is part of the nationwide initiative “The Year of Alice” realized by the John & Alice Coltrane Home and numerous partners.
 
Other events include Gallery 33 at The Georgian in Santa Monica, where the first exhibition of Paris Brosnan’s paintings, Rhythm and Reveries, will take place. The son of Pierce Brosnan, who recently guest-starred in the campaign for fashion label Pas Une Marque, founded by Sean Coutts, will propose “an exploration of the human condition through a childlike lens using non-representational expressionism, revealing characters and scenes born from the artist’s imagination and dreams, shaped by the vivid beauty of tropical destinations.”
 
For an experience that fosters connection and renewal through art, The West Hollywood Edition’s lobby will welcome artist Moral Turgeman from February 18 to 23 to conduct individual Blind Portrait sessions by appointment. Through a 45-second eye-gazing exercise, Moral connects deeply with each participant, capturing their essence in a single, continuous line without looking at the paper. These intimate portraits are part of an ongoing project to connect with 10,000 people around the world through direct eye contact. 

The Frieze event, held just over a month after the devastating fires broke out, received the support of numerous dealers, artists and museums to maintain the event. A dozen artists in Los Angeles saw their homes and studios destroyed by flames. The same fate befell gallerists and collectors such as Ron Rivlin, who lost over 200 pieces of art, including some 30 by Andy Warhol. Frieze and other cultural institutions have also joined forces to launch the LA Arts Community Fire Relief Fund, which raised over $12 million to support those impacted by the fires.