LOS ANGELES — As the wildfires that devastated large swaths of Los Angeles last week are gradually being contained, thousands of Angelenos are beginning to survey the damage and looking ahead at the long road to recovery. For both LA’s art community and the international art world, there has been much discussion about the city’s upcoming art fairs, which are scheduled to take place the third week of February. Amid some concerns that moving forward with these events would be inappropriate or financially imprudent, other sources told Hyperallergic that the fairs would provide critical sources of support and solidarity.
Perhaps the biggest question lingering in the air was about the fate of the fair week’s behemoth, Frieze, which tends to have a much larger proportion of international and non-local participants than the smaller fairs. On Friday afternoon, January 17, the fair finally sent an email announcing that its sixth edition, set to open February 20, would go forth as planned.
Felix Art Fair, which takes place at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel again this year, is also scheduled to move forward.
“We believe our purpose as a homegrown LA fair remains clear: to support the artists and galleries that make up our cultural fabric,” read an email sent to participants on January 13. The decision, the email continued, came from “a strong-willed determination to help heal, rebuild, and support the creative community of this city.”
The fair’s organizers recently established the Felix Wildfire Fund for Grief x Hope to benefit victims, with 100% of donations going to artists and art workers impacted by the blazes, Felix co-founder Mills Morán told Hyperallergic via email.
Chris Sharp, founder of the Santa Monica Post Office fair making its debut next month, also confirmed to Hyperallergic that the show would be continuing as planned.
“LA needs this now more than ever,” Sharp said. “It’s an important moment to give people a sense that we’re rebuilding, that there’s something to show up for … It’s crucial. A lot of these people depend on this period economically to make a living.”
LA’s longest-running art fair, the LA Art Show, has confirmed that it will be returning to the LA Convention Center for its 30th anniversary edition. Representatives for the Spring Break Art Show have not yet responded to Hyperallergic’s request for comment.
Hannah Hoffman, whose namesake gallery with locations in MacArthur Park and East Hollywood/Melrose Hill is participating in Frieze LA, echoed Sharp’s sentiment, noting that the economic impact of art fairs — and the consequences of a last-minute cancellation — “extend far beyond the artists and galleries who are its most visible participants.”
“These fairs support a vast network of vendors, partners, and workers whose livelihoods depend on them during this moment of extraordinary uncertainty,” Hoffman told Hyperallergic. “If the fairs move forward, which it seems they will, we will need our community of collectors, curators, friends and peers to help make them a success.”
Artist Kelly Akashi, who lost her home and studio in Altadena in the Eaton Fire, was among the first to stress the economic and moral support the fairs could provide to affected artists.
“But my position, and I am making it clear to people, is [that] your duty is to your artists first. And everyone needs to be supporting current and future shows,” she wrote in a message to artist Mark Verabioff, which he shared on his Instagram. “Capitalism doesn’t give you a hall pass to chill, even when you lose everything.”
She repeated that conviction in a call with Hyperallergic, stating, “I don’t want the economic impact to spread further and affect other artists. I’m here to celebrate other artists’ accomplishments. I want this community to be healthy so they can extend that care to me.”
The Other Art Fair, at which artists, rather than galleries, exhibit their own works, is also on schedule to open in Atwater Village on February 20.
“Five weeks from now, Angelenos will be seeking a place to be uplifted, to be welcomed, and to be inspired,” fair director and LA native Nicole Garton wrote in an email to 140 exhibitors, roughly half of whom are based outside of LA.
“We intend to provide that space for people, and offer respite to a community which has experienced so much loss,” Garton said, noting that other major cultural events, including the forthcoming Academy Awards and the Grammys, “have continued as scheduled amidst earthquake disasters, civic uprisings, and more.”
There are indeed financial risks in participating in an art fair, even during the best of times, especially for galleries traveling and shipping work from across the country or the world, and questions have been raised about whether LA can handle multiple fairs so soon after the disaster.
“It’s clearly a hugely complex situation — logistically, economically, emotionally, and psychologically,” Matthew Higgs, director of New York nonprofit art space White Columns and founding curatorial advisor of the Independent Art Fair, told Hyperallergic via email. “I believe that people were, and remain, genuinely concerned about the appropriateness of staging art fairs in such close proximity to such an unprecedented, and still unfolding situation.”
He acknowledged that most, if not all, of the fairs would be moving ahead, adding, “I know that many people in the Los Angeles art community want the fairs to take place, in the hope that they will act as a galvanizing moment to help start the process of rebuilding.”
Felix’s Morán shared that a small number of galleries from outside Los Angeles expressed concerns, mainly about whether attendance and sales would suffer. But none have asked to drop out so far, he said.
“We want the global art community to come experience it firsthand and to be reminded as to why they fell in love with this city in the first place,” he said.
Despite the reported trepidation of some out-of-town dealers, Wendy Olsoff, co-founder New York’s PPOW gallery, said she was committed to participating in the inaugural Santa Monica Post Office.
“Everyone is a little confused outside of LA, and there’s a lot of speculation,” she admitted in a phone call from Singapore, where the gallery is currently participating in the Art SG fair. “I’m listening to my friends and dealers in LA. I’m taking my cues from them.”
She recalled the period after the September 11 attacks, when her gallery on Broome Street “was covered in ash.” Despite the tragedy, they moved ahead with a planned opening and dinner.
“It was so good,” she remembered. “Just being together was unbelievably healing.”
LA gallerist Charlie James, who will be exhibiting at Felix, praised that fair’s decision to move forward.
“Art has a role to play in how we process this catastrophe, and to stop gathering around it, whether out of a sense of decorum or fear of business loss is counter-productive in my view,” James told Hyperallergic. “Forward is the only answer I’ve found, even amid grief and pain.”
