THIS WEEK'S HOT TOPIC
Los Angeles is an appealing destination at the best of times, but for those of us on the East Coast who woke up to shin-high snow, the SoCal city now beckons like a ray of sunshine.
That’s good news for the organizers of Frieze LA, who are preparing to kick off the 7th edition of the fair this week. As in previous years, the event will be staged within a custom structure at the Santa Monica Airport, a few blocks from Venice Beach. With just over 100 participating galleries, it purports to offer laid-back atmospheres, communal vibes, and plenty of celebrity sightings.
But there’s more to this year’s edition than fun in the sun. Visitors can expect a political frisson amid the week’s proceedings, given LA’s status as a battleground of ICE activity and protest. There’s also something at stake for the art world, as the city has seen an unsettling number of galleries shutter in the last calendar year, including long-established LA outfits like Blum and LA Louver.
Frieze, to its credit, isn’t shying away from these topics. The resilience of LA’s longstanding art scene is the soft theme of the fair, with many galleries planning presentations that celebrate hometown heroes while emphasizing intergenerational and cross-cultural exchange. Karma will spotlight Norman Zammitt, a lesser-known Light and Space artist; Yancey Richardson and Casemore Gallery will team up to show Larry Sultan’s photographs of San Fernando Valley porn sets; and Gagosian will put iconic West Coast artists Richard Diebenkorn and Ed Ruscha in dialogue with successors like Lauren Halsey, Alex Israel, and Jonas Wood.
Of course, this is just one of many art events set to open in the City of Angels this week. You can bet that fellow expos like Felix Art Fair, Post-Fair, and Enzo (debuting this year) will build upon the sense of solidarity.
3…THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT PREPARING FOR LA ART WEEK
1
Plan your daily schedule with traffic in mind and save spontaneity for the evenings! If there’s one thing that’s for certain about Los Angeles, it’s that if you’re driving between the hours of 4:00 and 7:00 pm, you will be encountering traffic. A sound piece of advice is to break up your fair-going days by geography: hit the Felix and Enzo VIP previews on the Eastside on February 25th, and the Frieze and Post-Fair VIP previews on February 26th on the Westside. Fill in the rest of your California days with smoothies from Erewhon and gallery shows in the heart of the city on Western Ave. and in West Hollywood. Moving through LA efficiently requires tactical scheduling, but do everything you can to relax and let your hair down after rush hour and float from gallery dinner to party to party to party.
2
If you can swing it, use a rideshare! Otherwise, if you drive to Frieze, be ready to spend $45 on parking at the Santa Monica Airport—the fair venue is surrounded by residential streets that require a neighborhood permit. For Felix, skip the valet and head down the street to N. Sycamore Ave. for inexpensive public parking options (use the 7060 Hollywood Blvd. lot, entrance on Sycamore). And a final pro-tip that will save you, in some instances, up to an hour or more: if you’re at a party in the hills and are physically able to go on a bit of a hike, walk down closer to the main roads and then call your Uber. The traffic jams at 2 am on the more elevated streets after a party gets shut down can last a very, very long time. Just watch out for coyotes and bedraggled gallerists on your walk.
3
While Frieze anchors the week, much of the most interesting work in Los Angeles happens outside the fair tents. Local galleries treat LA Art Week as an opportunity to mount ambitious, often museum-caliber shows, and many collectors plan their trips around these exhibitions as much as the fairs themselves. Make time for gallery visits in areas like Western Avenue, West Hollywood, and the Eastside, where you’ll see gallerists putting their best foot forward for the global collectors touching down for the week. Try out a few of the new project spaces this year, like August Blum’s The Village, Matinee from Andrew J. Greene, and the roving space Manual Arts, hosted by the advisory firm Art & Acquisition.
A NUMBER TO KNOW
5%
The size of the one-time tax on in-state billionaires being proposed in a new California ballot initiative. Rather than being triggered by income, the levy would apply to anyone with more than $1bn worth of assets—including stocks, intellectual property rights, and artworks—who was still a Golden State resident as of January 1, 2026.
Even though activists are still trying to get enough signatures to ensure the proposal even makes it onto the ballot this November, the sheer possibility of paying the tax may already have motivated some of California’s wealthiest and most visible figures to bail. The list of billionaires to establish legal residency in another state ahead of the deadline includes Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, per the New York Times, as well as blockbuster director and producer Steven Spielberg, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Before Spielberg’s departure, there was a strong argument that the only billionaires likely to leave California over a one-time tax of 5%—around the expected annual return of a basic S&P 500 index fund in an average year—were technocrats with little to no public record of supporting the state’s arts infrastructure anyway. Now that case is a little weaker. And with around 200 billionaires projected to qualify for the tax if it becomes law, this becomes another political issue with the potential to impact a major cultural economy in a serious way.
—Tim Schneider / The Gray Market
ASK: ACCESS SOPHISTICATED KNOWLEDGE
Diego ASKed: Does it matter to run a very good gallery in a secondary city, or has the market become so centered in places like LA, New York, London, Paris, and Berlin that the rest is a bit for nothing?
Josh Baer for NoReserve: Galleries outside of these international hubs aren’t for nothing. There are pros to staying in your own area. You know collectors, curators, and artists already. Rent, salaries, and other expenses will also be less. Your main allegiance is to the local collectors. You may be able to work with artists you like who are already represented in the major cities.
There are cons, too. In smaller cities, there is a risk of being out of sight, out of mind. You may have to participate in more art fairs to achieve a more global reach, offsetting some of your overhead savings. My advice? Grow organically at home and then see if the artists you work with have a need for you to go after the brass ring.
Have your own question for the NoReserve team? Reply to this email or reach out to us on Instagram, @no.reserve. Readers whose submissions we choose get a special prize—six free months of The Baer Faxt.
2 MINUTES WITH…
To what extent are auction houses becoming a destination for luxury goods? In 2020, we spoke with Sotheby’s then-Global Chairwoman, Mari-Claudia Jiménez, about the market, her perspective as a lawyer, and all the ways in which Sotheby’s continues to innovate in a hyper-competitive field. Head ➡️ here to watch the full conversation.
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All interviews from The Baer Faxt Live from Doha are now available to watch on our website and YouTube, or listen wherever you get your podcasts. Hear on-the-ground insights on the region and the inaugural edition of Art Basel Qatar from Jean-Paul Engelen, Director at Acquavella ➡️ here; Saud Alkhater, a local collector, ➡️ here; Mariët Westermann, Director and CEO of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation ➡️ here; and Princess Alia Al-Senussi, PhD ➡️ here.
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