But for all the gossip, if you’re actually on the ground, it’s a mad dash, a spree of great gallery openings and spare-no-expense dinners to follow. Gladstone isn’t the only dealer to double down on the city. Other extremely successful bicoastal enterprises—galleries that make New York and LA their primary home bases—include David Kordansky Gallery, Karma, Matthew Brown, Jeffrey Deitch, Hoffman Donahue, François Ghebaly, and James Fuentes. They all have big shows on both coasts, and that’s not even mentioning the LA-operating mega-galleries that also have outposts in Europe (Gagosian, Hauser & Wirth, David Zwirner, Lisson, Marian Goodman, Pace, Perrotin) and decided to stage their major shows in LA while everyone’s in town for Frieze.
Another data point: As I mentioned in my profile of the artist Paul McCarthy, The Journal Gallery is staging possibly its most important show in over two decades of existence, not in New York—where it started—but in LA, where they opened an outpost in 2024.
Gallery dinners for The Journal in the past have been nice affairs at Dan Tana’s, the classic red-sauce joint right next to its West Hollywood space, but this year it held the dinner at the home of one of the city’s most illustrious collectors, Eugenio López Alonso, whose Grupo Jumex company runs a private museum in Mexico City that has staged some of the most ambitious contemporary art exhibitions of the last 20 years. The house is a doozy: a Richter greets you in the foyer, then you see the Donald Judd stack with a Richard Prince joke on one side and a Damien Hirst spot painting on the other. Don’t trip over the incredible Charles Ray sculpture that leads to the patio, and duck under the Bruce Nauman hanging in the den. The study, maybe the city’s most high-taste study imaginable, has Prouvé tables and a Steven Parrino behind the reading nook.
López wheeled around, greeting guests, including Jean Pigozzi and collectors Lauren Taschen and Patricia Marshall, and artists such as Lauren Quin and Hayal Pozanti. As I was leaving, David Zwirner director Alex Marshall was parking his convertible as the enormous figure of Luc Tuymans unfolded himself from a black car.
“Where else do collectors invite you into their homes, and you get this level of taste?” Jeffrey Deitch asked me as he was walking in, recalling another dinner at a collector’s home that he compared to Versailles.
Before I went to López’s house, Calvin Marcus had a pop-up show of etchings at City Spa, one of the most celebrated schvitz joints on West Pico, and people showed up ready to take the waters. I spotted artists Adam Alessi, Jonas Wood, John Hodgkinson, Issy Wood, Tom McDonell, and Tristan Unrau.
And after López’s house, I made it to the Sprüth Magers dinner at A.O.C., celebrating new work by David Salle. A number of Sprüth artists were in attendance, including Jon Rafman and Ryan Trecartin, who has an absolute banger of a show with his artistic partner, Lizzie Fitch, opening this week at Morán Morán. Hollywood was also in attendance, as novelist Emma Cline introduced me to comedian Nathan Fielder, who was sitting at a table with Salle. One table over was the actor Christoph Waltz, who was also in attendance at a dinner for the artist Tacita Dean to celebrate her show at Marian Goodman Gallery on Saturday.
