14-02-2025
After Fires, Frieze LA Pitches Community Support Through Art
After the wildfires burned swaths of the Palisades and Altadena, there was speculation that the art fair Frieze Los Angeles, soon to open its sixth edition, would be postponed or canceled. Initially, Frieze announced that it was ' assessing ' its options, but quickly Christine Messineo, the fair's director, began to hear from galleries, artists and museums. 'They were very much like, 'Los Angeles needs you, and it's counting on you for this moment to galvanize the community and gather us around the arts,'' she says. 'There was no decision to be made; it was like, 'Absolutely, we're coming, we're here.''
And so Frieze LA (February 20-23), which like all art fairs is first and foremost a place of commerce, has also become, post-wildfires, a de facto community-building exercise. 'I know collectors and people from the LA community affected by the fires are going to be there,' says the gallerist François Ghebaly, who will have a booth. 'They're looking forward to this moment of community.' It's an impulse, dealer Jeffrey Deitch says, that's only natural. 'People want to connect, and people want to see other people,' he says. 'I saw this after 9/11 in New York City in the art world.'
