> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://hyperallergic.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # This Year, Frieze Los Angeles Feels Grand, Celebratory, and Actually Kind of Fun - URL: https://hyperallergic.com/frieze-los-angeles-2020/ - Published: 2020-02-14T19:21:26.000Z - Updated: 2025-11-24T15:52:35.000Z - Description: This year’s iteration drives painted sports cars into the showroom, disguises booths as furnished apartments, and even houses a James Turrell skyroom. - Author: Renée Reizman - Tags: Art, California, Frieze Los Angeles, Los Angeles, Photo Essays, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:41 (2019, 2020, part 2) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2020/02/frieze_23.jpg) Performance artist Pandemonia at Frieze Los Angeles 2020 (all photos by the author for Hyperallergic) LOS ANGELES — [Frieze Los Angeles](https://frieze.com/fairs/frieze-los-angeles?ref=hyperallergic.com) is doing away with minimalism. This year’s iteration drives painted sports cars into the showroom, disguises booths as furnished apartments, and even houses a James Turrell skyroom. Situated in Paramount Studios and its backlot — a grand imitation of New York City with palm trees sneaking into the skyline — Frieze juxtaposes a traditional enclosed art fair, stuffed with blue chip galleries exhibiting living and late superstars like Jeff Koons, Anish Kapoor, and Jean-Michel Basquiat, with a sprawling outdoor festival that celebrates Los Angeles’s history of artist-run spaces. Inside the main tent, colorful figurative paintings, motion works on large LCD screens, and bright neon slogans (“Look at Them Look at Us” cries out a piece by LA-based artist [Genevieve Gaignard](https://vielmetter-com.imgix.net/works/gaignard%5F286%5Flookatthemlookatus%5Finstall01%5Fhires.jpg?q=80&fm=pjpg&w=2200&fit=max&ref=hyperallergic.com)) compete for attention. Some galleries turn their entire booths into an immersive experience, like at Anat Ebgi, where Greg Ito’s paintings of California wildfires line the walls of a dining room slowly flooding from rising tides that protrude from the baseboards. Other booths, like Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, stuff their space with a wide sampling of who they represent. Bonakdar showed off works from 12 artists, including Olafur Eliasson, Kelly Akashi, and Sandra Cinto. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2020/02/frieze_30.jpg) Genevieve Gaignard, “Look at Them Look at Us,” Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Outside, on the Frieze Backlot, pop-up reading rooms, shops, and bars are moved into Paramount’s brownstones, giving you a rare chance to see New York through the same eyes as *Ally McBeal*. The backlot’s highlight is [Frieze Projects](https://hyperallergic.com/frieze-projects-los-angeles-paramount-2020/), curated by Rita Gonzalez and Pilar Tompkins Rivas, a set of 18 recontextualized or newly commissioned, site-specific art pieces and performances by 16 artists. Lorna Simpson’s two-channel video installation, “Momentum” (2011), shows Black ballet dancers perpetually spinning, their bodies painted gold like prized Oscar statuettes. Will Boone’s life-sized sculpture, “The Three Fates” (2020), depicts three witches conspiring over a cauldron, their cartoonish figures evoking oversized merchandise from a Disney film. And Patrisse Cullors leads a silent disco, inviting fairgoers to put on synced wireless headphones and side-step to the electric side. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2020/02/frieze_20.jpg) Frieze Projects commission, Patrisse Cullors With such grandiose artworks dominating Frieze Los Angeles, the fair caters to the Instagram age more than ever before. But not every booth — especially the LA contingent — lets a photo op overpower substance. Look for Calida Rawles’s gorgeous paintings of Black swimmers at Various Small Fires (one of these paintings is the cover of [Ta-Nehisi Coates’s newest novel](https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780399590597?aff=hyperallergic&ref=hyperallergic.com)), Jaime Muñoz’s modern take on pre-Colombian art at the Pit, and Gaignard’s flowery demands for gallerists — or anyone — to sell to Black collectors at Suzanne Vielmetter Los Angeles. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2020/02/frieze_24.jpg) Frieze Los Angeles 2020 ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2020/02/frieze_15.jpg) Frieze Projects commission, Will Boone, “The Three Fates,” Paramount Backlot ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2020/02/frieze_16.jpg) Frieze Projects commission, Tavares Strachan, “Sometimes Lies Are Prettier,” Paramount Backlot ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2020/02/frieze_48.jpg) Frieze Projects commission, Lorna Simpson, “Momentum,” Paramount Backlot ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2020/02/frieze_47.jpg) People posing in front of Frieze Projects commission, Gary Simmons, “Back Drop Project,” on the Paramount Backlot ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2020/02/frieze_02.jpg) Olafur Elliasson, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2020/02/frieze_36.jpg) Greg Ito, Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2020/02/frieze_37.jpg) Greg Ito, Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2020/02/frieze_44.jpg) Derrick Adams, Salon 94, New York ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2020/02/frieze_26.jpg) Jordan Casteel, Casey Kaplan, New York ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2020/02/frieze_31.jpg) Genevieve Gaignard, Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2020/02/frieze_32.jpg) Alison Saar, L.A. Louver, Los Angeles, ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2020/02/frieze_06.jpg) Alicja Kwade (sculpture) and Gregor Hildebrandt (paintings), König Galerie, Berlin ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2020/02/frieze_39.jpg) Ugo Rondinone, Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zurich ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2020/02/frieze_38.jpg) Ida Eklab, Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2020/02/frieze_11.jpg) Gehard Demetz (sculpture), Jack Shainman Gallery, New York ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2020/02/frieze_29.jpg) Gallerie Perrotin ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2020/02/frieze_33.jpg) Eliza Douglas, Overduin & Co., Los Angeles ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2020/02/frieze_21.jpg) Frieze Projects commission, Naama Tsabar, “Untitled (Double Face,)” installed in one of the brownstones on the Paramount Backlot ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2020/02/frieze_13.jpg) Frieze Projects commission, Gabriella Sanchez, “Hommes, Homes, Homes,” Paramount Backlot ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2020/02/frieze_49.jpg) Sayre Gomez “Palm Tree Cell Tower” and the Paramount water tower [*Frieze Los Angeles*](https://frieze.com/fairs/frieze-los-angeles?ref=hyperallergic.com) *opens to the public at the Paramount Pictures Studios (5515 Melrose Ave, Hollywood, Los Angeles) on Friday, February 14.* **Correction:** *A previous version of this article credited an artwork to Betye Saar that is in fact by Genevieve Gaignard. This has been corrected.*