Heading Into Frieze, Los Angeles Is Poised Between ‘Grief and Hope’

As the art market looks ahead to its next big event, Frieze Los Angeles in 2026, Los Angeles is marking more than a year since devastating wildfires devastated parts of the city.

“We really thought the whole city was going to burn,” Angelena Megan Mulrooney, who opened her eponymous gallery there in 2024, said in a phone conversation.

“I have two clients whose homes and their collections burned down,” said consultant Irene Papanestor, who splits her time between New York and Los Angeles. “It’s a huge loss.”

“Things are kind of bad in this town, and even us locals are worried,” said a longtime Los Angeles dealer who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“The fire was traumatic in many ways,” said dealer Anat Ebgi, who owns a gallery on Wilshire Boulevard and another in New York’s Tribeca neighborhood. Later, she said: “Whether people realize it or not, this city is in the midst of the Great Recession. We’re just starting to emerge from it.”

As for today’s emotions, Abuji said, “Sadness mixed with hope.”

Eight months ago, the city was rocked by protests over Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids, leading to a police crackdown and the historic deployment of 2,000 National Guard troops on orders from President Donald Trump. (The riot resulted in iconic images of riot police outside the Museum of Contemporary Art, asking questions like “Who is above the law?” in front of a mural of Barbara Kruger.)

The wounds come against a backdrop of massive layoffs in the entertainment industry, a major driver of the city’s economy that deadline I recently started keeping a running list that includes news like layoffs at Netflix, Amazon, and Paramount — all of which have happened in recent months. It follows two massive strikes in Hollywood, offshoring due to the Covid-19 pandemic and a possible Warner Bros. Discovery Channel/Netflix merger. Market players point out that producers, screenwriters, directors and other related film industry figures have long been expected to support galleries and artists, but they themselves feel very vulnerable.

Along with the general downturn in the market, there have also been layoffs in the local arts industry. In 2025, Tim Blum closed his Los Angeles gallery after 30 years (also in Tokyo and New York); New York’s Tanya Bonakdar closed her Los Angeles space after seven years; Sean Kelly, also based in New York, stopped showing at the Los Angeles branch he opened in 2022.

“Los Angeles takes time,” Ebgi said, echoing the sentiments of several market insiders who believe the Los Angeles outpost is just another outpost for a city brand that doesn’t truly participate in the city’s unique cultural landscape. Nonetheless, the closings of Bonakdar and Kelly come during a period between 2023 and 2024 when at least 10 galleries, some of them local, closed or laid off staff because Art Network News reported at the time. As Night Gallery founder Davida Nemerov pointed out in a phone conversation, the damage caused by the fire was so great that both philanthropists and ordinary citizens were attracted to support from various charities, which may have weakened their willingness to prioritize art collections.

It’s not all doom and gloom. In recent years, many new Los Angeles galleries and artist-run spaces have put up signs, making them almost untraceable for some who live there. These include Fernberger, Gattopardo, Gene’s Dispensary, Giovanni’s Room, La Loma, Nonaka-Hill, Sea View, Soldes and Timeshare.

“The coolest thing about L.A.,” said Nemeroff, who opened his gallery in Los Angeles 16 years ago, “is that you can never predict which gallery is going to be the trendiest.”

“There’s a New Guard feel,” Mulroney said, noting that some of these up-and-coming galleries are run by women and do things differently, often collaboratively. She will be collaborating with fashion designer Marfa Stance (whose work she calls works of art in themselves) for the Frieze Week opening dinner, adding that La Loma is collaborating with Los Angeles stalwart Susanne Vielmetter for a fashion show, just as Sea View is organizing a party with Sebastian Gladstone.

There is also excitement on the institutional front, with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art opening its Peter Zumthor-designed building to the public in May. The exhibition “Monuments” at the Brick Museum and Geffen Contemporary made national headlines for bringing together decommissioned Confederate monuments with works by Kara Walker and other contemporary art stars, while the Robert Therrien exhibition at the Broad has gone viral on social media with its giant versions of everyday objects.

So it was a unique moment when more than 100 galleries from 24 countries gathered at the Santa Monica Airport for Frieze from February 26 to March 1. Famous new Los Angeles galleries Fernberger and Sea View, along with 15 other galleries, will debut at Frieze. Also on the agenda are the eighth Felix Satellite Fair at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, the second Post Fair organized by Los Angeles dealer Chris Sharp at the Santa Monica Post Office, and the inaugural Enzo, which brings nine New York galleries to Echo Park.

Many galleries are hosting Los Angeles-specific exhibitions at Frieze. Gagosian will exhibit works by artists including Chris Burden, Frank Gehry, Ed Ruscha and Mary Weatherford. Sprüth Magers will be presented to local hero John Baldessari and his students. Pace will bring artists with history from the region, including Mary Corse, David Hockney and James Turrell. Karma will focus on Norman Zammit, a little-known figure in the California Light and Space movement.

Last year’s wildfires occurred so close to the art fair that it was still up in the air whether Frieze would even take place. Still, by the end of the VIP preview, with works from major dealers including Gladstone, Michael Rosenfeld and David Zwirner selling for more than $1 million, there was a general feeling that the art world had rallied around to lend support to the city in its time of need. This time, top galleries are once again bringing in seven-figure or near-seven-figure works.

Gladstone (New York, Brussels and Seoul) brought a 7-foot-tall Alex Katz painting, Jamian 7 (2026), with a price tag of $1 million. This is a portrait of artist and gallerist Jamian Juliano-Villani (he, new yorker is taking a break from making art and looking for a day job, readers recently learned).

Michael Rosenfeld Gallery in New York presents a series of works themed around the intersection of music and art in 20th-century American art, by authors including Benny Andrews and William T. Williams, with eight works worth more than $1 million, including Romare Bearden, Sam Gilliam, Bob Thompson and Charles White. works.

Gagosian galleries around the world will bring works by Frank Gehry, Ed Ruscha and Wayne Thiebaud, All works, including other artists, are priced in the six- to seven-figure range.

Pace to present installation by James Turrell carat and stick (2021) is a never-before-exhibited work from the artist’s “Glass Works” series that explores the sensory perception of space and color. It’s priced at $950,000.

Whether L.A.’s struggling market will be able to absorb all those seven-figure pieces remains to be seen, but for her part, Mulrooney believes a new generation of collectors from Millennials and Gen Z are emerging, some from the real estate and finance industries, which could soften the blow of the downturn in the entertainment sector.

“Yes, a lot of galleries have closed or decided that L.A. is not for them,” said Night Gallery’s Nemerov. “But there’s a really strong community of artists here and people are still here and still creating.”

Despite all the bad news, “people are still hungry for art,” Abuji said.