Los Angeles Galleries Perform Well at Frieze London

During the five-day fair in London, almost 90,000 visitors from more than 110 countries visited around 270 galleries worldwide. Some galleries achieved significant sales of distinguished artworks by well-known or emerging artists, contributing to an energetic sales environment. As galleries from Los Angeles continue to make their mark on the international stage, their success at Frieze London 2024 is a testament to the city’s rich cultural context. Some of the highlights include:

Hauser & Wirth kicked off the first day by selling Arshile Gorky’s 1947 painting The Opaque for $8.5 million at Frieze Masters. The other works sold were Édouard Manet’s Pelouse du champ de courses à Longchamp (1865), Elle danse (1948) by Francis Picabia, and a few other artists’ works in Frieze Masters. Also, some of the artworks by Charles Gaines’ Shadows series in the solo booth at Frieze London were sold. Gaines’ Shadows debuted the newest works from his series, which began in 1978. Using ink and watercolor, Gaines explores different plants and their shadows, notifying the role and impact of ordinary objects in our daily lives.

Gagosian captured attention by selling out Carol Bove’s sculptures quickly after the fair opened. Bove’s Grove I–Grove IX installation features nine abstract sculptures around ten feet tall, each with a vertical design. They include chains, painted discs, a partially twisted square profile, and a stainless-steel tube. The components were flawlessly joined the tall and raw steel pieces.

Sasha Gordon, Cyclops, 2024. Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner, New York © Sasha Gordon.

David Zwirner sold a couple of paintings by Lisa Yuskavage and the 95-year-old Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama’s ongoing Every Day I Pray for Love series since 2021. David Zwirner broadly represented living artists from different generations, including Rose Wylie to Sasha Gordon. Cyclops (2024) by Sasha Gordon shows the artist’s naked avatar hunched over, wearing only nude slingback heels. In this work, the artist, having her face half-covered with her dark hair, gazes at the viewer, which holds the viewer in the first glance to discover the tension in between.

Sprüth Magres sold a painting by the German visual and performance artist Anne Imhof and a work by the American conceptual artist Joseph Kosuth, who believes art’s purpose is to create meaning. He explores this idea through a series that uses dictionary definitions of words like ‘art,’ ‘meaning,’ and ‘painting’ as the artwork itself, presented as an enlarged photographic reproduction. Sprüth Magres also reported sales of the artists such as Thea Djordjadze, Mire Lee Louise, and Olive Bak.

Pace Gallery highlighted its sales with David Hockney’s July 25th – August 7th, 2021, Rain on the Pond, 2021. It also successfully sold pieces by Robert Longo’s Untitled (White Peonies) and Alicja Kwade’s l’ordre des mondes (Totem), alongside artworks by Emily Kam Kngwarreye, Pam Evelyn, and Ennui Head (2020) by Yoshitomo Nara, featured in Frieze Sculpture.

Sean Kelly Gallery showcased innovative art pieces by various artists. Sam Moyer’s Clippings series merges recycled stone with painted canvas, offering a distinctive blend of materials. Marina Abramović’s work, inspired by her 1988 walk on the Great Wall of China, featured Shoes for Departure made from quartz to inspire mental exploration.

Night Gallery sold works by several artists, such as Marcel Alcalá’s Embrace, 2024, and Lie Close, 2024, Bambou Gili’s Legally Stev, 2024, and paintings by Zaam Arif, Esiri Erheriene-Essi, Cathleen Clarke, Tidawhitney Lek and Claire Tabouret. Bambou Gili’s painting Legally Stev has won the Spirit Now London Acquisition Prize 2024. This prize is an opportunity for artists and their galleries to have their works acquired and donated to the Women’s Art Collection at the University of Cambridge.

Lisson’s solo booth at Frieze London featured Leiko Ikemura, the Berlin-based artist who explores various mediums, including tempera, oil paintings on jute fabric, glass, terracotta, and bronze sculptures. Highlighted among the featured works was Usagi Kannon Pray, an art piece that illustrates the usagi (rabbit), a frequent motif in Ikemura’s creations. This symbol, representing suffering, resilience, and renewal, emerged after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and the Fukushima disaster.

Michael Warner represented works by artists like Hurvin Anderson, Don Van Vlie, and Enrico David. David’s piece Tools and Toys I is made from polymer plaster and graphite. Exploring form in an abstract realm is a crucial part of this work. David often revisits the human form as a theme for transformation.

Perrotin Gallery represented Gregor Hildebrandt, Kathia St. Hilaire, and Lynn Chadwick alongside a selection of works by emerging and other established artists. Kathia St. Hilaire’s work, Lonbraj Nan Eleonore Juliette Chevallier Moreau, 2024, is an oil-based relief collage with steel and paper on canvas. Kathia St. Hilaire is inspired by her upbringing in South Florida’s Caribbean and African American communities, as well as Haitian Vodun flags, weaving the country’s history and spiritual heritage into her art.

Tanya Leighton’s group show asks how cultural memory sustains and transforms identity. Mathew Krishanu’s paintings of Asian banyan trees on a grand scale took my attention. He paints those trees with broad, flowing strokes resembling admired trees. Krishanu’s painting gives the trees an authentic feel. Nicole Ondre’s decorative glazed ceramic works give an amusing texture to the ceramic that viewers may wonder what those chains are made of.

Karma showcased works by artists like Reggie Burrows Hodges’s On the Verge: Embrague, 2024, and Woody De Othello’s ceramic work, You and me both, 2024, infused with humor and exaggeration.

Azadeh Kangarani is an artist and writer based in Santa Monica. Her reviews on performance art have been published on The Theatre Times, Farsi Cinema Center, and Czech Art & Theatre Newspaper.