Podcast Episode 51:
You’re listening to the Art Problems Podcast, Episode 51. I’m your host, Paddy Johnson. This is the podcast where we talk about how to get more shows, grants and residencies.
And on this podcast I’m going to be discussing my trip to Los Angeles for the art fairs. But I also want to seed a larger question, which developed as I visited talked to people and visited the fairs, which is: Is the economic center of the art world shifting to L.A? Let me explain how this question started to formulate and then I’ll do a deeper dive into the fairs themselves, in terms of character, trends, and notable art works.
The first fair I visited in LA was SPRING/BREAK. SPRING/BREAK is probably best known as the fair most friendly to artists without representation. They use a curatorial model, meaning you apply with work under a theme the fair organizers chose for the fair as a whole, you work with a curator (which is usually another artist) and propose a booth often consisting of two or more artists. This year, for the first time, the fair included spotlights - solo booths for artists selected by the fair organizers. The cost of the both typically runs in the hundreds of dollars, rather than tens of thousands other fairs charge, and SPRING/BREAK makes additional funds by taking a percentage of your sales.
The vast majority of L.A. based artists I met at the fair were New York transplants. Those who had been in LA for a while, spoke about how much bigger the scene was than ten years prior. Most discussed a need for more affordable space and better weather as a reason for moving.
Obviously, the move has been going on for some time. But the sheer volume of New York transplants seemed notable at this point.
The next day, I went to the Frieze Art Fair and Felix. Frieze, which is the largest fair of the three I saw in LA, and attracts the wealthiest collectors and the most expensive art felt alive and full of energy, whereas Felix - the fair for the middle market — felt subdued by contrast. I was feeling pretty under the weather, so most of my conversations about the events happened the following day when I went gallery hopping and met up with the artists inside Netvvrk. Many artists at the Netvvrk event at The Middle Room Gallery had come directly from Frieze, where crowds were so thick they could barely move.
Prior to having talked to anyone, I came out of Frieze assuming the market was flat. Everyone brought painting, which is what you do in a cooler market because it sells better than any other medium, and the New York dealers I had spoken with earlier in the week were still complaining about the market.
But frenzied activity the likes of Saturday’s crowd don’t occur outside of sales, and Artnet reported that sales were brisk. Five years ago, all the LA based fairs had been short lived, without a collectors market to support them.
This stands in stark contrast to Frieze New York, which is having troubles. After three days in L.A. I concluded that if you lived here and work in the arts, you couldn’t afford to skip Frieze. Last fall, I decided not to attend Frieze New York any more because it was too expensive, I found the non-profit location offensive and depressing, and it wasn’t like I was doing Networking there I couldn’t do elsewhere. So, I felt like I could skip it. And the reason this is significant is that Frieze is one of the largest art fairs in the world. And if Frieze doesn’t do well in New York, but it does well in L.A., then that could be an issue for New York. What I don’t know is whether New York based collectors are flying to LA to purchase work they can also find in NYC. That’s the big tell. But I’m going there because I can see the need, and I know I’m not the only one.
Meanwhile, over at Felix, I spoke with Allegra LaVoila of Sargent’s Daughters who said she felt she should take a large booth, now that she has an outpost in LA as well. Now even mid-sized galleries have locations on both coasts.
All of these factors combined make me feel like the economic center is shifting West. Why? The real estate is cheaper, fabrication costs are lower, and there’s more space. All of these things are conditions needed for art.
Now, due to feeling ill, I wasn’t able to talk to enough dealers about sales to really understand how Felix did - Felix did less well than Frieze. Unlike the year prior, there were no lines to get into the rooms, but for the first night. So, it seems like the excitement has died down. Felix for those who haven’t been, but are familiar with New York’s Independent Art Fair, is a very similar line up of middle market galleries only instead of showing in a glimmering white space, they take over the historic Roosevelt Hotel. It’s a kinda dingy space but some of the hotel rooms have bars in them, which I think is kinda fun.
I’ll note here that the publishing industry is so hollowed out, that there’s almost no market reporting on Felix sales. The Art Newspaper reported slow sales and the LA Times ran a piece quoting the fair’s director who said that several booths had already sold out, but didn’t name them. I want to point out here, that my job is not that of a journalist first. I’m an art coach, who traveled to LA to be able to better advise the artists I work with. If it’s just me and a lone reporter from we’ve got problems.
A similar low energy can be said for SPRING/BREAK. I love the event as a fair for artists, and the backend of the fair had a lot of great booths. A lot of the work struck me as something I might see at NADA Miami, in terms of quirkiness and style. But it was very sparsely attended. When I spoke with artists who had attended the opening, they told me very few people came out.
This makes me sad. There’s plenty of good work at the fair. They were the only fair to host an art work that consisted of AI tarot reader that tap into your emails and produce readings (although I didn’t meet anyone who actually got a reading since the artist wasn’t in attendance when I anyone I knew as there, or myself.).
The point is, there’s no reason not to attend, and lots of great artists to talk to. So, why weren’t people there? The same phenomenon occurred in New York this fall, which I chocked up to exhausting a location. They’d been in the same office space for four years and its run down appearance just didn’t work any more. But, it’s a little unclear why the same issue is happening in L.A.
Here’s what I will say: I’m not convinced low attendance in either Felix or SPRING/BREAK LA can be chocked up to location or the quality of the art. I don’t have any definitive answers, but to speculate, I’d wager that despite reports of an energized crowd at Frieze, the market is soft, particularly in the emerging and middle market. And that’s showing up even in an environment that people are excited about—and is more visible at the emerging end of things where collectors who are experiencing fair fatigue are just not making it out to the secondary fairs in the same way they used to.
Okay, last but certainly not least, let’s talk about the art.
Stand out booths at Spring Break: Fred Fleisher curated a booth of Don Porcella crudely rendered sculptures made of wire mesh and colored pipe cleaners. In one arrangement of sculptures, a man in a suit with a baseball cap stands behind a deer carrying a glittery mouse on its back. A mouse, and a couple of logs surround each slightly smaller than life size figure. In another Charles Ray like constellation of family members -a tall woman with a gold club, a short man, and giant head with an unfurled tongue each sit on astroturf.
One of the qualities I like about the work is that the mouths are open, revealing the structure of the work. They’re hollow. I kinda like that in a time when we seek out authenticity and realness — a quality that seems more allusive than ever — even the most honest rendering of materials reveals a hollowness inside. Even if you do blah blah [Keep]
I mean, I doubt the artist made that work with my interpretation in mind, but I’m sure at least some of it would hold water with Porcello.
Also worth mentioning, Venas Abiertas, an exhibition of photographic portraits by Rachelle Anayansi Mozman Solano. In these works, female models wearing turn of the century clothing or alternatively nudes pose with cardboard cutouts of cacti, and logs. In this environment I read the images as stage-like and referring to Hollywood and the colonization of the west. Molnar writes that “Mozman sets the stage for a psychological play, featuring a cast of characters from her life, to reflect on the emotional inheritance handed down from the impacts of colonization and white supremacy in Panamá.” So, I wasn’t too far off.
Honestly there’s too much of note to go through everything, so quickly xe colorful painted still lives, Mary Henderson’s jewel-sized figurative paintings, and the dyed rubber boots marked by evaporating water by Michael Handley and curated by Jack Henry each stood out for their considered approach to the craft.
Overall, we’re seeing far less ceramics, photography, and sculpture at the fairs, which is why a space like SPRING/BREAK is so important. The artists there show a variety of medium. The higher up the food chain you get, in the world of commerce, the less variation there is. Collectors aren’t really that adventurous.
But, if you spend all day painting as your job, you’re gonna get pretty good at it. At Frieze Victoria Miro showed a new body of figurative works by Hernan Bas, someone I’ve noted in the past has grown tremendously as a painter. A series of subtly erotic young gay boys line one wall. The most striking work, a huge portrait of a young man in a suit behind a birthday cake ablaze with a million candles stands out. Youth springs eternal, as they say.
But also Jordan Castell’s paintings at Casey Kaplan. Frankly the growth and her range of painterly applications is just astonishing. In one still life she leaves nearly have the canvas untouched - a beautiful spare touch. In another much more worked over piece, the individual marks making up a straw hat worn by a mother posing with her husband and child feel so considered.
And at Felix, the weird alien like figures of Michael Kirkham at Harkawik gallery stood out for their bizarre proportions and striking color palette - one was very bright in color with whites and oranges while another stood out for its nighttime palette of blues and blacks. And Kavi Gupta’s exhibition including a hugely diverse range of artists including theater gates, Manish Nai, Miya Ando and more, gave the fair a well needed jolt from whiteness. I’ll admit to a weakness for all work by Jose Lerma, whose textured figurative collage sat tucked away in Gupta’s booth in the bathroom. And in full disclosure, this may have something to do with the fact that he lived a few doors down from me when I was in my twenties and some of the best conversations I’ve ever had about art were with him, about his own art and others. One of the most thoughtful artists I’ve ever met.
Probably the biggest trend this year are heavy patterned or detailed paintings that look like they were inspired by rug design. These paintings are everywhere. Aide Rodriguez Lopez at Proyectos Monclova, Laura Owens at Matthew Marks, Jeff Perrone at Corbet vs Dempsey to name three of hundreds.
I’m very susceptible to trends - whatever flavor of the month we’re at, I’m usually buying it. I suspect most of us are like that but it’s worth pointing them out, because trends are more fleeting than hard and fast interests. We want to be able to discern between the two, so we can recognize the difference between our taste and what’s hot at any given moment. It helps us make better art, and if you’re a collector, make better buying decisions.
Okay, well that’s it for the podcast this week! Whether or not you attended the fairs, I hope you’re able to add some of these reflections to your contemporary art world knowledge base. This kind of stuff always comes up in conversation!
I’ll see you back here next week!
Paddy
