Los Angeles Art Week isn’t just about Frieze, it’s also about gallery shows and parties, as well as the ever-growing number of satellite galleries offering artwork at a price that won’t break your bank account. This year, those exhibitions included After the Fair, Other Art Fair, Felix Art Fair, and, in its inaugural appearance, BUTTER LA — part of the long-running Indianapolis-based BUTTER Fine Art Fair, which showcased the work of African-American artists at Hollywood Park in Inglewood.
“We’ve stood out all the way through outstanding artists, and it’s something for everyone: museums and institutional collectors, as well as corporate collectors,” Nakita Moore, curator and organizer, told the Observer. “We have limited edition works too, and we cover all the bases when it comes to the type of art collectors we invite. Even though this is a black artist-led gallery, the collector base is very broad. It’s for anyone and everyone.”
Participating artists were selected after nearly 30 studio visits, and include Micah Johnson, Autumn Brion, Courtney Herron, Mikaya Carter, and April Bay, representing a mix of 50 percent artists from California, mostly from Los Angeles, 25 percent from Indianapolis and the rest from places like New York, Chicago, and Miami.
The preview night included a live painting of Mr. Wash (officially: Fulton Leroy Washington), who painted a piece he’s been working on since the late 1980s that features people like Trump and Elon Musk. “It talks about immigration and a lot of what we’ve all been experiencing over the last couple of years,” Moore said, adding that most of the work is apolitical despite the craziness of our current times. “We’re kind of living in the storm at the moment, and from an artistic point of view, you need to process what’s going on before the works start coming in. I think in the next few years we’ll see more politicized works, but people are a bit scared.”
Meanwhile, the other art gallery is visiting Brooklyn, Dallas, London and Chicago, in addition to Los Angeles, where it achieved record results last September. For the latest edition, the numbers were not as high but resulted in the second highest number ever for the Los Angeles edition of the show, up 41 percent year-on-year since February 2025. The average transaction saw a 16 percent jump year-on-year, as well as a jump in volume, up 21 percent.
Visitors to her new space, 3Labs in Culver City, enjoyed “The Art of Ping Pong: Play it Forward” hosted by Altadena Brick by Brick, a local nonprofit dedicated to rebuilding homes destroyed by the Eaton Fire. For a small donation, visitors can play on specially designed ping pong tables that can also be used as works of art. Among other notable points, Farewell line It’s an interactive phone booth where people leave anonymous voicemails to say goodbye to people who never got the chance. and Fu to Booth It featured hand-drawn analogue figures rather than automated stills. Also featured was Thank youan inflatable installation by French-Australian artist Linus Groszewski created from 1,500 reused polyethylene bags. The immersive geometric structure filtered sunlight, creating a shimmering environment that transformed everyday waste into fields of color.
Nicole Garton, the gallery’s director, said of the exhibition: “We appreciate that we are not presenting an encyclopedic and educational exhibition to people. We do not aspire to be heavy-handed.” “We call it the ‘Other Arts Gallery,’ meaning we are not trying to be an alternative to the traditional arts space, but trying to expand it and bring other people into it.”
As it has since 2019, the Felix Art Fair has held its usual venue, the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, adding 22 new exhibitors, including New York Life Gallery, LA’s Feia and SOM GALLERY from Tokyo while welcoming the return of 20 galleries, including Brigitte Mulholland from Paris, Corbett vs. Dempsey of Chicago, and Uffner & Liu of New York.
This year’s boutique exhibition is housed in rooms and cabins around the hotel’s historic pool, painted by David Hockney, and includes a room by textile artist Channing Hansen, whose immersive fabric maze both confounded and delighted visitors. The Tierra del Sol show by female artists with disabilities is also not to be missed. Six were selected out of 150 people, including Jenna Green, who incorporates American Sign Language into her work. She sold nearly all of her pieces on the first day, contributing to the gallery’s early sales, which exceeded its 2025 show, according to curator Jenny Rusk.
“Felix has turned into a gallery to explore,” co-founder Mills Moran told the Observer, noting that the newly instituted application process had attracted “smaller, newer galleries, recently opened galleries… Slip House is only a year old,” after name-checking the existing gallery in Greenwich Village. Slip House gallery owner Ingrid Lundren reported selling half of her inventory on the first day, with prices ranging from $1,400 for a work by Emily Claire Murdoch to $54,000 for a large-scale work by Keisuke Tada.
Moran doesn’t track sales for the show, only for his own gallery, Moran Moran, which he runs with his brother Al. “Right now there is a mixed sales environment, and I see that continuing,” he said. “We were stronger in the lower price points and mid-price points. Our offerings were really affordable, and they sold out.”
More at art fairs, biennales and biennials
