Three top museums – the Hammer Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles – are establishing a joint acquisition fund of $75,000 to support local artists showing at Frieze.
This and the LA Arts Community Fire Relief Fund are testament to the “strikingly collaborative community” in Los Angeles, says Katherine E Fleming, the president and chief executive of the J Paul Getty Trust, which operates LA’s Getty Center and Getty Villa museums.
Outside the entrance to the fair, Lauren Halsey has created an “art booth” in collaboration with her fellow Angeleno artist Alake Shilling and students from Bret Harte preparatory middle school in South Central Los Angeles and the Rosebud academy in Altadena, which is among several schools severely damaged or destroyed in the fires.
In the face of such enormous personal loss, the artist and her parents are taking part in efforts to preserve the legacy of Altadena, recording their stories for an audio project organised by the Black Trustee Alliance in collaboration with Frieze Art Fair.
“Oftentimes following these events, people move, and they move quickly,” says Christine Messineo, the director of Americas at Frieze, the celebrated contemporary art fair taking place in four cities worldwide each year.
