黑料不打烊

Felix Art Fair is one of several fairs occurring simultaneously this year in the newly dubbed “LA Art Week.” With a reputation that’s grown exponentially in the last year alone, Felix Art Fair fills a different role than the other shows. Felix isn’t vying for the social currency of a household name like Frieze, nor the historical relevance of LA Art Show – the largest and longest-running contemporary art fair on the West Coast – or the niches created by The Other Art Fair (affordable art and independent artists presented by Saatchi Art) or Post-Fair (the pilot edition of an alternative fair focused on solo shows). What makes Felix special is that it isn’t quite sure what it is, harnessing the beautiful chaos native to LA.

Event space for Benjamin Langford’s “Fresh Cut” at Megan Mulrooney featuring Red-Frilled Carnation (2023). Photo by Maya Garabedian.

Prior to the fair, even mere days before, a trip to their website would take you through a script detailing a scene at the fair that developed on the screen. There were three buttons: HOLLYWOOD ROOSEVELT HOTEL and FELIX ART FAIR, the show’s location and title, which would only add to the script, and TICKETS, the only functional button of the bunch. No fair origin story, no contact information, and until the fair was already underway, no gallery list. But absurdity is reframed as whimsy in the context of the fair’s unique energy. A comically unhelpful website could very well be a digital art experience, maybe even a commentary on the exclusivity of Hollywood (even in fine arts, where old-school connections like word-of-mouth dinner invites still reign supreme) or the way technology holds us hostage to obstruct real-world experiences. The chaos of a blended presence combining fair attendees, hotel guests, and locals having dinner and drinks is a commotion unlike any other fair, but the iconic celebrity haunt has a life force that can’t exist within the walls of a giant tent, arena, or warehouse.

Ross Hansen installation with Volume Gallery. Photo courtesy of Maya Garabedian.

Immaculately preserved Spanish Colonial Revival architecture is a lovely backdrop for anything, but the Felix Art Fair isn’t confined to some grand hall at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. The fair, which has been around since 2018, featured 60 galleries this year, with roughly half in “cabanas,” hotel rooms on the ground floor with access from the pool, and half in the larger suite-style rooms on the 11^th and 12^th floors. Clearing out three floors of a luxury hotel on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, a tourist hotspot, is quite the commitment, but it allows for an intimate dynamic and a uniquely curated experience in every room (and bathroom), down major walkways, and on each private patio. With old elevators with a maximum occupancy of eight, the main lobby was home to a never-ending queue run by intense hotel security with loud voices amplified by the stunning archways of the arcade. Needless to say, I, like many others, began my journey on the ground floor simply because it was easier. Once I made it past the ground floor, I realized there was a clear divide between the cabana showcases and those on the 11^th and 12^th floors, despite no such distinction being advertised. Work on the ground floor was, on average, less expensive and technically skilled than their deluxe room counterparts.

Mickalene Thomas, Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe: les trois femmes noires avec Jardin d’eau, 2024, screenprint and UV ink, 24k gold leaf, rhinestones. Courtesy of JRP|Editions.

However, some big names were on the ground floor, including a dazzling Mickalene Thomas piece hanging in the hall. Swiss contemporary art publisher JRP|Editions collaborated with the world-renowned American artist Mickalene Thomas to release a mixed media print, Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe: les trois femmes noires avec Jardin d’eau, which takes her original work of the same name from 2011, a reinterpretation of Edouard Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (1863), and reimagining it once more. With hand-applied rhinestones (6,000 in total), 24k gold leaf, and frames designed by the artist herself, incredible patience and precision are exhibited in each of the 45 prints. The publishing group displayed other prints and sculpture reproductions, however, Thomas’s easily recognizable style, adorned in shining gold and aqua stones was impossible to miss, and with a price tag for match ($19,638, available for purchase online).

Cabana patio installation from Europa featuring Milly Skellington’s HOLYWATER (2024). Photo by Maya Garabedian.

Other standouts on the main floor were the showcase from Europa, a New York City gallery, which included strong works from Milly Skellington, such as HOLYWATER, in which the phrase is hand-carved like the Hollywood sign out of a large pink quartz. From Chicago’s Volume Gallery, Ross Hansen had a series of breathtaking lighting fixtures – Milk Thistle, Dalea, and Coneflower, the latter featuring three different editions – all made from standard lighting components, hemp, and bio resin, with some also using aluminum, wood, epoxy resin, and paint. There were also two particularly meaningful causes represented, the first of which viewers see immediately after retrieving their wristband. The first, FOUNDATIONS: A FIRE-RELIEF BENEFIT, featured hundreds of artist-made stones that each honor community strength and resilience, serving as a reminder that the rebuilding process will need to be a communal effort. Each stone was set to sell on a sliding scale from $125 to $500, with 100% of proceeds going directly to under-resourced communities that need assistance in their recovery process.

Bathroom gallery view from Tara Downs. Photo by Maya Garabedian.

Installation view from Althuis Hofland Fine Arts. Photo by Maya Garabedian.

On floors 11 and 12, Althuis Hofland Fine Arts, a gallery from Amsterdam, made its mark by being one of, if not the only, room to keep the bed in the exhibition space. Riding the wave of textile and fiber art was HAIR+NAILS (Minneapolis) showing work by Lindsay Rhyner, and Patel Brown (Montréal and Toronto) with a closet full of work by Winnie Truong, as well as intricate threaded denim panels by Erick Medel with Charlie James Gallery (Los Angeles). There was one work in particular that wasn’t getting the attention it deserved: Gabriel Slavitt’s 21^st Century Voyeurism from local gallery Babst. 

Gabriel Slavitt, 21^st Century Voyeurism, 2022, house paint, drywall mud, on automative body filler, polyester gelcoat, polyester resin, fiberglass aluminum foil, foam insulation board, wood. Photo courtesy of Maya Garabedian.

The large work is an unusual texture – a high-relief painting on carved foam, nearly 4.5 inches deep – which starts with the use of matte-black house paint followed by a thin fixture of house paint and drywall mud. In it, a solitary figure takes on the role of observer, either of themselves in the mirror, or someone else through a window, with a frame colored by the light reflecting from a television or street lamp. Part of why this work was so wonderful, and why I chose to end my fair day there, is because Slavitt’s piece reflected the spirit of Felix as a whole: surrendering to confusion and having faith that something beautiful emerges.

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