In Pictures: Frieze Los Angeles, a feast for the senses

Mungo Thomson

March 30, 1981 (The New Hollywood) (2024)

Karma

The Los Angeles-based artist’s mirrored Time magazine covers have become regular fixtures at art fairs, where they offer irresistible selfie opportunities. Each work “is a self-made vanitas, and their meaning becomes particularly poignant at an art fair—reflecting all of us back onto ourselves in a series of infinite mise en abyme”, says a gallery representative. Here, Thomson has used the cover design of a 1981 issue of the magazine with a downturned corner and an Oscar statuette peeking over—an apt offering with this year’s Academy Awards just over a week away. The work is priced at $100,000.

Olafur Eliasson

Your small altruistic assembly (2025)

Tanya Bonakdar Gallery

The Danish Icelandic artist has devoted much of his career to recreating sensual and optical phenomena in his work—as can be seen in his solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art’s Geffen space (until 6 July)—and the latest work in his series of glass orbs offers the irresistible opportunity to see oneself reflected in miniature and upside down. The work’s unique configuration draws inspiration from dew drops, sunflower pistils and algae. A gallery staffer confirms that the work had sold by the morning of the fair’s second day, but did not disclose the price.

Ariana Papademetropoulos

Psychic Specific (4) (2025)

Massimo de Carlo

Frieze visitors are invited to pick up the receiver of Papademetropoulos’s vintage-payphone sculpture and listen to recorded ocean sounds and the Los Angeles-based artist having a conversation with her psychic. As the psychic talks about water, rainbows, lily pads, the sky and the universe, Papademetropoulos interjects every once in a while. “You like to keep water,” the psychic tells her. “We’re living in a morphing world.” The interactive sculpture has already sold, for an undisclosed price.

Betye Saar

Sanctified Visions (1990)

Roberts Projects

This installation includes two works by local darling Betye Saar, who will celebrate her 100th birthday next year. “Five years ago, we started digitising all of Betye’s archives,” says the gallerist Julie Roberts. “We found the Critter Chair in storage and Sanctified Visions photos in her archive.” The chair rocks back and forth, and the grass goes deep into the corner of the gallery’s stand. The installation honours the writer Zora Neale Hurston; the chair and window are being sold separately, for $200,000 and $300,000, respectively; Roberts says that there has been institutional interest in both.

Cosmo Whyte

Promis(ed) Land (2019)

Anat Ebgi

A version of Whyte’s musical installation was first exhibited at the 2016 Atlanta Biennial, while the Jamaica-born, Los Angeles-based artist was going through the process of naturalisation as a US citizen. It was the first year he could vote and he proudly cast his ballot for Barack Obama. The speakers on The Well Traveled African play a version of the theme song from the television show The Jeffersons, one of the few US shows available in Jamaica when Whyte was a child. The gallery is in talks with a US museum to acquire the $20,000 work.

Max Hooper Schneider

Sand Writing Crater (2024)

Maureen Paley

This kinetic sculpture, which Schneider made for the 2024 Gwangju Biennale, is mesmerising visitors to the Galleries Together benefit stand supporting the LA Arts Community Fire Relief Fund. It features a metal marble tracing enigmatic drawings in a circular plot of sand rimmed with colourful lights. The marble is controlled by a magnetised robotic arm concealed within the sculpture. “Once the drawing is complete, the marble moves to the centre and then spirals outward, erasing the image,” says Oliver Evans, a senior director at the gallery. The work is available for $82,000.

Davina Semo

Copper Lookout (2024)

Jessica Silverman

This bell is one of more than two dozen by the Los Angeles-based artist Davina Semo. The bells are all made of bronze and different sizes and textures, so, when rung together, they create unique harmonies, according to the gallery’s sales director, Hakkı Serhat Cacekli. Should you like what you hear, the work is still available for $18,000.

Haegue Yang

Sonic Rotating Line Type A—Nickel Plated #13 (2013)

Kukje Gallery

This delightful spinning sculpture by the Korean artist features hundreds of tiny nickel-plated bells, which produce a pleasant, jingling whir. A Kukje Gallery attendant says it is “one of the earliest works in this series”, which Haegue has continued with different configurations and types of bells. This version, from 2013, is priced at €40,000. Prospective buyers can choose a different colour—all custom-designed by the artist.