Dealers are buzzing at Frieze LA’s VIP day: ‘It’s crazy’

First-day sales reports from galleries at the latest Frieze Los Angeles art fair showed great enthusiasm. Enough New Yorkers fled the snow to fill the aisles, as did California’s major collectors and cultural figures.

“It’s been crazy,” said Los Angeles dealer Charlie James, standing among works by Kristopher Raos, Manuel López and other gallery artists.

“We’ve already done three times the volume of Art Basel in Miami Beach in December,” Niamh Coghlan, director of Richard Saltoun Gallery in London, said earlier in the afternoon. “It’s a perfectly sized show,” she said, adding that there are about 100 exhibitors at Santa Monica Airport. The gallery is exhibiting the work of two Italian artists, Romany Eveleigh and Bice Lazzari.

There were strong sales at major galleries, with David Zwirner showing Njideka Akunyili Crosby’s 2016 work grandma’s living roomdonated $2.8 million to European foundations. The gallery also sold a 2020 painting by Lynette Yiadom-Boakye for $1.5 million, and two works by Lisa Yuskavage for $280,000 and $180,000.

Thaddaeus Ropac has branches around the world and sells paintings by Alex Katz Purple Split 3 (2022) sold for $700,000 just before 4 p.m., along with a painting by David Salle green vest (2025) For $280,000, Liza Lou inferiority (2025) for $225,000, and multimedia by Joan Snyder howl/heart (2011) sold for $140,000, just note its six-figure sales. “The attendance today was great and energetic,” Ropack said in an email. “Mainly collectors from the United States, but also representatives of institutions in town.”

Karma Gallery (New York and West Hollywood) starts strong with work by Jonas Wood poppy 5, poppy 6, poppy 7 (2024) During the first hour of the show, the sale price was $650,000. Paintings by Nicolas Patty Sunset (2025) Priced at $150,000; Ann Craven’s Moon (July, quiet) (2025) for $140,000, and Jane Dickson’s miracle wheel (2014) and other works sold for US$100,000.

“We’ve got some results on the scoreboard,” Eric Gleason, co-founder of Olney Gleason in New York, said just before noon, less than two hours before VIP Day. As of 4 p.m., the gallery had sold four of the five paintings on display by Kour Pour (for up to $65,000) and a sculpture by Bosco Sodi (for $72,000).

“It’s such a beautiful day,” said Stefano DiPaola, partner and senior director at Anat Ebgi in Los Angeles and New York, which is offering a selection of the artist’s work. “We have work from almost every artist, even multiple artists, in the booth,” he said. The biggest news is that a work by Jessica Taylor Bellamy was sold to the California African American Museum in Los Angeles for $11,000 through an acquisition fund established by the museum and the fair. Other works sold for as much as $100,000, a 1977 Faith Wilding painting.

“It’s really, really good,” said Ermanno Rivetti, director of Almine Rech Gallery (with locations around the world), citing auctions of works by artists such as Joe Andoe, Aaron Curry, Eva Juszkiewicz and Alexandre Lenoir, with prices ranging from $50,000 to more than $850,000 (Juszkiewicz Gallery). Rivetti observed that the aisles were more crowded than last year, when all was being said about the art world’s outpouring of support for Los Angeles in the wake of devastating wildfires.

Lisson Gallery CEO Alex Logsdail echoed the sentiment, saying, “There are a lot more people here than I expected, but with the reopening of LACMA, the expansion of the Broad, and the opening of the Lucas Museum, there’s a case to be made that this is L.A.’s moment.” As of 4 p.m., the gallery reported Kelly Akashi, Olga de Amaral, Hugh Hayden, Carmen Herrera Herrera and Leiko Ikemura.

Los Angeles dealer Esther Kim Varet, founder of Various Small Fires Gallery, said her booth was already ahead of the curve before the show even opened. She was showing a painting by 86-year-old Jessie Homer French, a floor-to-ceiling painting of a forest fire, priced at $90,000, while the paintings were on the market for $35,000 to $68,000. Kim Varet is also running for Congress in California’s 40th District, saying she has a close race against two Republican incumbents in a recently reorganized district. “Never underestimate a crazy mom,” she said. “It feels really good to fight for something right now.”

Top collectors include Jason Rubell of Miami; art news Top 200 collectors Jill Kraus and Peter Kraus from New York, Lynda Resnick from Los Angeles, a group of museum trustees, LACMA director Michael Govan and, according to the dealer, some big fish from Silicon Valley are all on the prowl. In Los Angeles, celebrity shoppers naturally get the spotlight. Actors Fiona Shaw, Timothy Olyphant, Christoph Waltz and Emma Watson were on hand, as well as François Arnaud from the hit gay hockey series fierce competition.

Los Angeles’ unique geography and culture would have been on display in many of the presentations, if the Los Angeles actors weren’t present. Los Angeles’s Fernberger Gallery, founded in 2024 by Emma Fernberger, is showing two 11-foot-wide landscapes by lifelong Angelena Greta Waller (whose day job is as a caregiver) looking out over the city from above. Each is priced at $85,000. For the artist, a love for the city and anger over its recent travails, particularly ICE’s immigration raids, are woven into the paintings.

San Francisco’s Casemore Gallery has teamed up with New York’s Yancey Richardson to present Los Angeles’ unique culture in a more poignant light through photographs from Larry Sultan’s series “The Valley,” taken behind the scenes of pornographic films in the late 1990s and early 2000s, which Casemore associate director Janie Perez-Radler describes as a blend of documentary and fantasy elements. They were priced between $23,000 and $65,000, with three sold within the first hour of the show and one by the end of the day.

By the end of the day, sales at the David Kordansky Gallery in New York and Los Angeles had reached six figures, with paintings by Jonas Wood topping the list. Bonsai #12 (2025) for $600,000, closely followed by Shara Hughes swirl (2025), $340,000, Mary Weatherfordsunrise, venus (2026), for $300,000, and Adam Pendleton’s Black Dada(A)2025-26, sold for $275,000, and other works by Jennifer Guidi, Ron Gorchov and Sayre Gomez sold for more than $100,000.

International traders expressed optimism when asked whether they would be affected by the Supreme Court’s recent decision to strike down Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff regime and subsequently impose more tariffs. Daniel Roesler of Nara Roesler in Brazil noted that the news didn’t really have much of an impact on the art world. “Art is viewed as information,” he noted, “and information is not subject to tariffs.” People are even more worried about coming to the United States from abroad, he said, given the current administration’s harsh crackdown on immigration and the challenges of obtaining visas.

“No one is really arranging gallery meetings based on Trump’s rhetoric,” said another dealer from a gallery with a global footprint, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of alienating U.S. officials.

Going into the fair, there was a level of concern among Angelenos about the state of the art market at a time when the entertainment industry was struggling, but that wasn’t easily apparent on the first day. A dealer who did not want to be named had this question in his mind: Why is this exhibition so much more successful than the previous one. “Everyone brings the same thing, so why is this year different than the year before? I think there’s a lot more randomness than anyone wants to admit.”