There’s Something Brewing in Los Angeles: The Elephant Frieze Roundup 2024 

Los Angeles is arguably within the midst of an inventive renaissance. Once a traditionally underserved metropolis within the realm of art-world forms, L.A. has rapidly grow to be a global hub for galleries and collectors over the past decade. This actuality, in tandem with the wealthy and traditionally neglected creative traditions of Southern California, is making L.A. an ever-evolving, world-class arts vacation spot. It solely made sense then when Frieze hosted its first L.A. artwork honest in 2019, which has rapidly grow to be a foundational a part of the L.A. ‘s artwork scene’s calendar. 

This yr, to intensify Frieze’s relationship to the town, the honest has chosen the curator of the California African American Museum in Los Angeles, Essence Harden, to place collectively its Focus part. Harden’s curation for the honest is  “rooted in group, place and concepts of ecology.” For Focus she has chosen twelve galleries, 9 of that are in California.  

Below, Elephant author Theo Meranze explores the most effective of Frieze LA, 2024. 

Javier Ramirez at Sow & Tailor

Sow & Tailor is as Los Angeles because it will get. Founded in 2021 by L.A. native Karen Galloway, the south central gallery has made its mission to spotlight usually neglected Southern Californian artists. While in some ways a brand new child on the block, Sow & Tailor’s affect and spectacular curatorial prowess has made it considered one of L.A.’s most necessary burgeoning artwork areas. 

Fittingly, for its second go at Frieze L.A. as part of the Focus part, the gallery is exhibiting the work of Los Angeles native Javier Ramirez. Ramirez’s work excavates the connections between Southern California’s Japanese and Latino communities, particularly their relationship to migrant labor. The intersecting histories and aesthetics of those two teams are indelible elements of the area’s previous, and by extension, its current. Ramirez ceremonializes this actuality by approaching them with cerebral fingers, melding them into  acrylic, graphite, and marker based mostly work and a multi-material sculpture. The artist’s work feels subtly mystical but remarkably grounded, nostalgic with out being fetishistic: his items pull you in and inform you Californian folktales. 

Blessing Ngobeni at Jenkins Johnson

A champion of curators and collectors of coloration, Jenkins Johnson has been platforming biting, lucidly political work since its founding in 1996. With two areas, one in Brooklyn and the opposite in San Francisco, the gallery has established itself a powerful monitor report throughout its practically two decade lengthy existence. In the primary Los Angeles solo exhibiting of his profession, South African multi materials collage artist Blessing Ngobeni matches effectively into its canon. 

Ngobeni’s sales space at Frieze explores the fraught realities of post-apartheid life in his residence nation. Utilizing imagery impressed and brought from South African media, his multi-layered items operate as social critique and historiography: their refined, abstracted our bodies containing the imagistic and materials pillars of his society’s marred unconscious. His use of a various array of fabric is especially notable, weaving tactile fibers and materials in his work as a way of accentuating their relationship to the tales and realities he’s reflecting on in his work. In an interview carried out in 2020 and printed in Iliso Magazine, Ngobeni refers to himself as a “visible dancer.” It’s simple to see why— there’s a hanging motion to his work, one which Pirouettes by time and place with a pointy historic perspective. 

Wildline Cadet at Shulamit Nazarian

Shulamit Nazarian is a Los Angeles based mostly gallerist who has traditionally made it her mission to platform rising and mid-career artists, specializing in Middle Eastern artwork. She initially established herself in a Venice, CA residence in 2011, earlier than shifting to a extra conventional gallery area in 2017 off of La-Brea and Melrose in Hollywood. Since this transfer, Nazarian has continued to show herself an integral a part of the town’s creative ecosystem. 

Historically unafraid of politically inclined work, Zazarian’s daring curatorial prowess has helped make the gallery a rising drive within the L.A. art-world. For her exhibiting at Frieze this yr within the Focus part, she’s placing on a solo presentation by Haitian multimedia artist Widline Cadet, who is ready to placed on a full exhibition with Nazarian later within the yr. Cadet’s Frieze presentation consists primarily of self- referential images and movies which draw from her journey as a Haitian immigrant within the United States. The artist at instances integrates video into her photographic shows, permitting her to play with notions of time and photographic presentation. Her fleeting, multimedia memory-scapes and beautiful portraiture are the location of a deeper examination of Haitian cultural identification, particularly because it pertains to dynamics of race and immigration within the United States.  

Debra Cartwright at Welancora

Brooklyn’s Welancora Gallery relies out of a nineteenth century townhouse in Bed-Stuy, however its attain is world-wide. Founded twenty years in the past with the objective of platforming the artwork of the African diaspora, Welancora has grow to be a drive to be reckoned with whereas staying true to its bodily and mental roots. At Frieze L.A. it’s exhibiting the work of Debra Cartwright, a multi-medium artist whose work and combined media compositions discover the connection between black ladies and the American medical system. 

Cartwright, a black girl and daughter of a gynecologist herself, mythologizes the physique by her use of refined abstraction. The dampened our bodies in Cartwright’s work are universes unto themselves, typically unfold all through the canvas and composed of a myriad of varieties and beings themselves. Her items are poignantly dreamlike, but in no way do they run from the world. There is a pained reverence that sprouts from Cartwright’s fashion, one which concurrently memorializes and laments the fraught histories of racial and gender wrestle she is processing by it.  

Sam McKinniss at David Kordansky

David Kordansky has grow to be a pillar of the L.A. artwork scene in his twenty years and operating as a gallerist. Spreading his wings from L.A’s  Chinatown in 2003 to the nook of La Brea & Edgemont and now a location in Chelsea, New York, Kordansky has been an integral a part of the motion to show you could flip an L.A based mostly gallery into a global drive within the art-world. 

For Kordansky’s presentation at Frieze L.A this yr, he’s exhibiting the work of New York based mostly painter Sam McKinniss. McKiniss crafts figurative pop-culture portraiture that depicts American celeb with an uneasy hugh. Not solely is McKiniss an astounding painter, however his exact selection of topic and magnificence has a strong social resonance in an period outlined concurrently by social instability and celeb worship. 

The well-known topics of McKiniss’s work typically look subtly warped, disturbed, and pink eyed. His portray of Halle Berry as Jinx Johnson in James Bond, which is being exhibited at Frieze, is a primary instance. In a way the painter is humanizing his topics by unveiling the oppressive actuality their commercialized picture embodies. In this fashion his work comprises inside it a revelatory nature, mining the pictures that encompass us for his or her hidden messaging.  

Barbara Kruger, Louise Lawler, Jenny Holzer George Condo, and plenty of others at Sprüth Magers.

Founded in Cologne in 1983 by Monika Sprüth and Philomene Magers with the goal of platforming groundbreaking modern artwork, significantly the work of feminine artists, the now historic Sprüth Magers is without doubt one of the most necessary art-spaces on this planet. An worldwide powerhouse, the gallery now has areas in Berlin, Los Angeles, London, and New York, in addition to places of work in Hong Kong, Seoul, and London.

Staying true to its authentic ethos, at Frieze L.A. this yr Sprüth Magers is exhibiting the work of among the most necessary artists of the final half a century. To try to explain the swath of labor being introduced at Frieze in a couple of sentences could be unattainable. Barbara Kruger is exhibiting new wall-work. Louise Lawler is exhibiting images that depict Jenny Holzer’s work pre set up at their collaborative 2007 present. Jenny Holzer herself is exhibiting benches and stools that embrace phrases from her collection, Truisms. The legendary George Condo is exhibiting his portray Old Man Portrait. Gretchen Bender is exhibiting video work.  The checklist goes on: Rosemarie Trockel, John Baldessari, Karari Upson, Sterling Ruby, Robert Irwin, Senga Nengudi, Anne Imhof, Nora Turato, Martine Syms, Analia Saban, Astrid Klein, and Pamela Rosekranz, are all exhibiting with Sprüth Magers.

Kim Sung Yoon collaboratively with Yoo Eui Jeong at Gallery Hyundai

The oldest gallery in Korea, Gallery Hyundai has been instrumental in creating the modern panorama of Korean artwork. Since its founding in 1970, Hyundai has hosted among the most necessary exhibitions in Korean art-history and facilitated the careers of the nation’s most storied artists, reminiscent of Nam June Paik, thought-about to be the founding father of video artwork, and the world famend painter Lee Ufan.

For its exhibiting at Frieze L.A, Gallery Hyundai is presenting the collaborative and particular person works of Korean painter Kim Sung Yoon and the ceramicist Yoo Eui Jeong. A prodigal painter with a effectively cultivated historic perspective, Yoon’s work employs an especially spectacular, classical approach to color his flower-centric items with a recent diction. Yoon makes use of Jeong’s detailed and at instances legendary vases in all of his work at Frieze. Joeng’s vases are additionally being proven alongside the work within the sales space. 

Yoons different biggest collaborator, in some ways, is the digital archive. In a latest interview with Harper’s Bazaar, Yoon explains he typically jokes that he’s “an artist striving to merge the web and offline.” The pictures in his work are sometimes organized digitally and drawn from google searches in addition to in particular person forays into flower markets. His flowers and vases in his sales space at Frieze are oftentimes subtly evaporating, exploding or falling aside, although this motif feels hushed. There is a pristine humbleness to his work: he doesn’t flaunt his underlying experimentation and technical prowess. Still, it’s actually felt.

Claudio Parmiggiani at Bortolami

Bortolami, the mind baby of Stefania Bortolami and Amalia Dayan, the latter of whom directed the canonical Gagosian Gallery for quite a few years, has cultivated a powerful presence in New York’s art- world over the past twenty years. At Frieze, Bortolami is exhibiting works of the well-accomplished and canonical Italian post-war artist Claudio Parmiggiani from his “Delocazione” collection. “Delocazione” actually interprets to “delocation,” and it is sensible. Parmiggiani’s panels are marked with the ghostly soot traces of deliberately set fires— they pierce you thru their haunting deployment of absence. The largest work being proven at Frieze, a multi-panel assortment of butterfly wings, felt significantly profound.

Stephanie Syjuco and Jenifer Okay. Wofford at Silverlens

Silverlens is an Italian gallery with roots within the coastal metropolis of Manila. In 2022, it opened a New York location in Chelsea, establishing itself as a global art-space. For its first presentation at Frieze L.A. Silverlens is exhibiting the work of two Filipino American artists, combined media artist Stephanie Syjuco and painter Jenifer Okay. Wofford. Wofford’s work are from her Comfort Room collection, which explores San Luis Obisbo’s Madonna Inn, a central California landmark recognized for its themed rooms and ongoing pop-cultural relevance. Syjuco’s handmade, {photograph} based mostly collages are comparable in that also they are a meditation on a sort of archive. They are rooted in pictures from the since handed Filipino newspaper, the Manila Chronicle and signify an try by the artist to convey the motion of historical past, particularly within the context of a historical past of political wrestle within the midst of its erasure. 

Gregor Hildebrandt at Perrotin

Emmanuel Perrotin has been within the gallery world since his early twenties. He based his first gallery in 1990, and within the final three a long time he’s established a global powerhouse underneath his identify with areas in Paris, New York, Hong Kong, Seoul, Tokyo, Shanghai, and as of Frieze week in L.A., a brand new gallery within the mid-city neighborhood of Los Angeles. 

To have fun, Perrotin is exhibiting a solo presentation of the work of German multi-medium artist Gregor Hildebrandt at Frieze (alongside the choose works of different Perrotin artists.)  Hildebrandt’s work is all about media and popular culture. In his physique of labor being proven on the honest, he’s memorializing the movie All About My Mother by Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar.  

Hildebrandt’s observe is extremely distinctive. He makes use of ever-fossilizing analog media expertise to discover our relationship to cinema and media at massive. For his exhibiting on the honest, Hildebrandt introduced sculptural columns constructed from outdated vinyl records and hanging portraits of feminine characters from All About My Mother on the again of outdated cassette tapes. The artist’s signature “rip off” work, which use the magnetic coating of audio and  video tape to create optimistic and detrimental impressions on twin canvases. In the ever-changing techno-landscape of the twenty first century, Hildebrandt’s observe feels significantly related. 

Sharif Farrag, Rat Race, 2024

A born and raised angeleno and graduate of UCLA’s prestigious MFA program, ceramicist and multimedia artist Sharif Farrag is without doubt one of the most necessary younger names within the L.A. art-world. Fittingly, Farrag was one of many artists chosen by Art Production Fund, who’s returning this yr to curate their for-the-public Set-Scene collection at Frieze L.A. This yr, Set-Scene goals to “characteristic works drawing on constructed environments and the way they relate to the notion of actuality and area.” 

Farrag’s mission Rat Race is a commentary on the automobile’s relationship to capitalism in Southern California. Los Angeles is a metropolis the place a automobile could as effectively be as necessary as one’s legs, a sprawling metropolis of former suburbs the place the everyday expertise of twentieth century city facilities: walkability and mass-transit, is changed with a posh net of freeways and a continuing have to drive. Through the crafting of ceramically adorned, rat-headed  R/C automobiles, Farrag conveys how for the common working resident of Los Angeles the act of driving can come to embody the senseless and exploitative actuality of labor at massive. Farrag can also be placing collectively races on Santa Monica Airport’s sports activities area all through the weekend, which are supposed to allegorically invoke the aggressive market dynamics of neoliberal life.

Pippa Garner, Haulin’ Ass!, 2023

Iconic artist, illustrator, and author Pippa Garner is having a bit proven at Frieze, however with a enjoyable twist. Garner moved from Detroit to California within the late Nineteen Fifties when the town was the opulent hub of the auto business. This relationship to automobiles turned a notable throughline of her multifaceted artwork observe and funding within the absurd. 

For Frieze L.A., Garner’s 1974 Backwards Car, which was on the time profiled in Esquire journal, a customized 1959 Chevy which is, fairly actually, rotated backwards, now has its personal nut-sack. The automobile, together with its testicles, might be pushed across the fairgrounds over the length of the weekend. 

Written by Theo Meranze