FRIEZE LOS ANGELES

Name: Frieze Los Angeles
Start: 2027-02-25
End: 2027-02-28
Location: Santa Monica Airport

Late February · Santa Monica Airport · Four Days · Since 2019 · Art

Arranged by the Court

Visitors walking past the pink entrance wall of Frieze Los Angeles 2026, beside the white tent of the fair at Santa Monica Airport, under palm trees and a clear blue sky — I · The Entrance

Dates: 25 to 28 February 2027
WhereSanta Monica Airport, Santa Monica
DressLounge suit
AdmissionOpen to the public
The weatherIn February Santa Monica reaches about 62°F by day and 50°F at night, and rain falls on about one day in four.
The tableThe Court dines afterwards at Giorgio Baldi, 114 W Channel Road, Santa Monica (giorgiobaldi.com).
Of noteParking near the fair at Santa Monica Airport is very limited. Bags larger than a handbag are not admitted, and backpacks may be no larger than 16 by 8 by 16 inches.
In companyA member who means to go says so to the Secretary, and the Court seats its members together where the engagement allows.RSVP tells the Secretary that a member means to attend. Send passes the engagement’s name, its date and the address of its page to whomever the reader chooses, or, on a computer, copies the address; the Court itself sends and keeps nothing.RSVP

Frieze Los Angeles is four days at the end of February. A hundred galleries from some two dozen countries, roughly half of them from Los Angeles itself.

Thirty thousand people come. What the fair has done to the city in seven years is more interesting than its size.

Collectors, dealers and curators talking between the booths of the Focus section at Frieze Los Angeles — II · The Focus Section

The Backlot

The first two editions, in 2019 and 2020, were held on the Paramount backlot.

Which is to say: an art fair staged inside a false New York, on streets built to be photographed rather than lived in, in a city whose principal industry is the manufacture of convincing illusions. The galleries took a tent, and the curated projects were placed among brownstones and a financial district that do not exist.

Nobody has arranged anything quite like it since, and the fair has been looking for a home ever since it left.

The 2021 edition was cancelled. In 2022 it took a vacant lot beside the Beverly Hilton. In 2023 it moved to Santa Monica Airport, where it has stayed, in a marquee pitched on the car park that holds an antiques market on alternate Sundays.

The airport is due to close before the end of the decade, so the fair will move again.

Paintings hung along the white walls of a gallery aisle under the daylit tent at Frieze Los Angeles — III · The Aisle

The Effect

Los Angeles had artists before Frieze. What it did not have was the galleries.

In the years after the fair arrived, Hauser and Wirth, David Zwirner, Pace, Lisson and Perrotin all opened or enlarged Los Angeles premises. A city that had exported its artists to New York for fifty years stopped having to.

That is the argument for the fair, and it is a strong one. Four days a year of tents on an airfield turned out to be enough to move where the market sits.

A four-panel textile work hung on a green fur wall in a gallery booth at Frieze Los Angeles — IV · The Textiles

What to Know

Half the galleries are local. That is the point of coming. The Los Angeles rooms show work that does not travel, and the visiting galleries bring their Californian artists.

Tickets are sold online, through Frieze’s ticket agent, and they sell out.

The fair is one part of the week. The museums, the galleries in Hollywood and downtown, and several private collections all open around it, and much of the week happens away from the airfield.

February in Los Angeles is the good month. Seventy degrees and the hills are green, which they are not in August.

The mistake is treating it as Frieze London in the sun. It is a younger and rougher fair with more local work in it, and that is the reason to go rather than a failing.

Questions

When is Frieze Los Angeles in 2027?

Frieze Los Angeles 2027 is held from 25 to 28 February at Santa Monica Airport, 3027 Airport Avenue, Santa Monica. The 2026 edition ran from 26 February to 1 March.

How much are Frieze Los Angeles tickets?

Prices for 2027 are to follow. Tickets are sold through Frieze’s ticket agent, See Tickets, and early-bird tickets go on sale first. Entry is by the time printed on the ticket.

Is there parking at Frieze Los Angeles?

Parking is limited. For the 2026 fair it was sold only on site, to ticket and pass holders, at $45 subject to availability, at the lot reached from 3171 South Bundy Drive, with last entry 45 minutes before closing. Frieze recommends public transport, a taxi or a rideshare instead.

Can children go to Frieze Los Angeles?

Yes. Children under two enter free without a ticket. From the age of two a child or youth ticket is needed, and children must be accompanied by an adult at all times.

Is there a dress code at Frieze Los Angeles?

Frieze publishes no dress code. The Court wears a lounge suit.

Large paintings on a deep red wall with ceramics on plinths in a gallery booth at Frieze Los Angeles — V · The Booth

The Court

Frieze Los Angeles is not the Court’s own. Preview passes, introductions to galleries and access to private collections around the city are sought on a member’s behalf, and the Court arranges the whole of it: getting there, where to stay, and the table afterwards.

How one becomes a member is set out under Admission.