Frieze Los Angeles 2026
PRIVATE VIEWS
KIPTON'S CURATED SELECTIONS
--
The seventh edition of Frieze Los Angeles takes place February 26–March 1, 2026 at the Santa Monica Airport, bringing together leading international and Los Angeles–based galleries for a focused presentation of modern and contemporary art. VIP previews opened a week of strong institutional engagement and citywide programming. This year’s edition continued to emphasize site-specific commissions through its partnership with Art Production Fund, alongside a tightly curated roster that balanced blue-chip historical material with ambitious contemporary voices.
Selected Highlights — Frieze LA 2026
Kipton reviewed hundreds of VIP presentations to identify exceptional works spanning postwar masters to leading contemporary voices. Historic anchors such as Richard Diebenkorn and Alex Katz underscored the enduring resonance of light, structure, and compositional clarity. A compelling thread of still life and landscape emerged across the fair: a luminous floral photograph by Robert Mapplethorpe revealed his signature formal precision beyond the figure, while a bonsai still life by Jonas Wood translated domestic subject matter into bold pattern and flattened space. Similarly, Catherine Opie presented a mountain landscape that explored scale and atmosphere through a meditative lens.
Material experimentation and abstraction provided a dynamic counterpoint. Daniel Arsham and Otobong Nkanga engaged materiality as narrative, embedding history and transformation within their forms, while Jean-Michel Othoniel contributed a refined abstract sculpture balancing delicacy and monumentality. A vibrant textile work by Sheila Hicks introduced tactile color and fiber as sculptural language, and a luminous triptych of aquatint prints by James Turrell extended his exploration of perception and light into an intimate, editioned format. Gesture and graphic intensity surfaced in works by Raymond Pettibon and Ivan Morley, contrasting with the iconic visual language of Keith Haring and the intimate figuration of Louis Fratino.
Together, these selections reflected a dialogue between observation and abstraction, materiality and perception—revealing how historical and contemporary practices alike continue to reinterpret landscape, object, and form.