Price Check! Here’s What Sold—And for How Much—at Frieze’s Inaugural Los Angeles Fair

Here's what art dealers say they sold at the buzzy LA fair (though watch out for number-fudging and other kinds of general sneakiness).

Photo by Mark Blower. Courtesy of Mark Blower/Frieze.

The figures are in, and by all accounts (that we could confirm, anyway) the first edition of Frieze Los Angeles was a success. Then again, if it wasn’t, would anyone cop to it?

On the first day of the fair, out-of-towners brought bad weather, but sales seem to have poured in quickly anyway. Within the first few hours, to no one’s surprise, Hauser & Wirth had placed their colorful installation by Mike Kelley with a private European foundation for $1.8 million—the most expensive work sold at the fair, according to information provided by dealers.

Nota bene: Sales reports are notoriously slippery in the art world. Some purchases may have been finalized long before the fair, while others might only be handshake deals, still waiting on paperwork and cash. But prices themselves are more reliably telling, providing a snapshot of where individual artists stand in the matrix of the art market today. Even here, of course, there is room for slippage: Some dealers occasionally offer inflated figures, while others prefer to report ranges or the “asking price” to obscure the actual selling price, or to cover up favorable treatment that one buyer may have received over another. (We did not include reported sales unaccompanied by a price or price range in our list, so the galleries that tend to disclose figures are disproportionately represented here.)

The sales below are sorted by medium and price, with all figures converted to USD for ease of reading. In honor of the Los Angelenos from the weekend, take these figures with a hefty dose of pink Himalayan sea salt.

Paintings

Andy Warhol, Georgia O’Keeffe (1980). The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts/ DACs London. Photo: Charles Duprat.

$1.6 million: Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Nets (B-A-Y) (2001) at Lévy Gorvy

$1.2 million: Günther Uecker’s Spirale III (2002) at Lévy Gorvy

$1 million: Alex Katz’s Blue Flag 4 (1967) at Pace Gallery

$875,000: Andy Warhol’s Georgia O’Keeffe (1980) at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac

$750,000: Alex Katz’s CK 23 (2017) at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac

$600,000: A painting by Mark Grotjahn at Blum & Poe Gallery

$578,500: Bridget Riley’s Measure for Measure 25 (2018) at Sprüth Magers

$550,000: Alex Katz’s Coca-Cola Girl 12 (2018) at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac

$399,000: Shirazeh Houshiary’s Mnemosyne (2018) at Lehmann Maupin

$300,000: A painting by Mary Corse at Kayne Griffin Corcoran

$250,000: A painting by Gajin Fujita in his solo presentation at L.A. Louver

$225,000: Ali Banisadr’s Rhizome (2019) at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac

$166,000: Shirazeh Houshiary’s Arrow of time (2018) at Lehmann Maupin

$166,000: Shirazeh Houshiary’s Blurring (2018) at Lehmann Maupin

$160,000: Shirazeh Houshiary’s Sonnet (2018) at Lehmann Maupin

$150,000: Mary Corse’s Untitled (Three Arches) (1992) sold by Kayne Griffin Corcoran to the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles

$120,000: Adam Pendleton’s OK DADA OK BLACK DADA OK (DA DA) (2018) at Pace

$50,000: Analia Saban’s Woven Grid as Warp and Weft, 40 x 40 (White) #2 (2019) at Sprüth Magers

$80,000: Loie Hollowell’s Linked Lingam in purple, yellow, and green (2015) at Pace

$50,000–$75,000 each: Three paintings by Vivian Springford at Almine Rech

$50,000: A painting by Hayv Kahraman at Jack Shainman

$45,000: A painting by Gajin Fujita in the solo presentation at L.A. Louver

$40,000: A painting by Gajin Fujita in the solo presentation at L.A. Louver

$35,000 each: Paintings by Parker Ito at Chateau Shatto

$30,000: Loie Hollowell’s Birthing Dance (2018) at Pace

$23,000: Kaye Donachie’s The Adored (2019) at Maureen Paley

$4,000 each: Van Hanos’s small painting series at Chateau Shatto

Sculpture and Installation

Installation view, Mike Kelly, Unisex Love Nest (1999). © Mike Kelly Foundation for the Arts. Licensed by VG Bild-Kunst, Berlin, Germany, Photo: Fredrik Nilsen, courtesy Hauser & Wirth 2019.

$1.8 million: Mike Kelley’s installation Unisex Love Nest (1999) at Hauser & Wirth sold to a private European foundation

$516,000: Antony Gormley’s Contain (2015) at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac

$516,000: Antony Gormley’s State XXV (2017) at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac

$479,000: Shirazeh Houshiary’s Lunate (2018) at Lehmann Maupin

$425,000 each: Six of James Turrell’s Small Glass works at Kayne Griffin Corcoran

$250,000: Doug Aitken’s Midnight Sun (2019) at 303 Gallery

$232,000: Erwin Wurm’s Bag Walking (2017) at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac

$175,000: Louise Lawler’s Formica (adjusted to fit) (2011/12/15) at Sprüth Magers

$150,000: Jenny Holzer’s Selection from Truisms: Action causes… Text: Truisms (1977–79, 2015) at Sprüth Magers

$150,000: Michal Rovner’s Blue Hills (2018) at Pace

$150,000: teamLab’s video work at Pace

$136,000 each: Three editions of Jeppe Hein’s Twisted Geometric Mirror I (2016) at König Galerie

$110,000: Nick Cave’s Arm Peace (2018) at Jack Shainman

$85,000: Hank Willis Thomas’s Faith (2017) at Jack Shainman

$85,000: Kathryn Andrews’s T-1000 (2019) sculpture, incorporating a prop from Terminator 2: Judgement Day at David Kordansky

$80,000: Senga Nengudi’s nylon mesh and metal sculpture Blossom (2014) at Sprüth Magers

$52,000: Studio Drift’s Bicycle at Pace

$40,000: Paulo Nimer Pjota’s Expedition Sec.21 (2017) at Maureen Paley

$28,300 each: Over 20 of 30 unique balloon sculptures by Jeppe Hein at König Galerie

$22,600 each: Jeppe Hein’s Modified Social Bench O (2008) and Modified Social Bench S (2008) to American collectors Deborah and Leon Black at König Galerie

 

Prints, Photographs, and Works on Paper

Installation view of Stuart Shave Modern Art’s solo presentation of Sanya Kantarovsky.

$480,000: Barbara Kruger’s Untitled (Stripe I) (2019) at Sprüth Magers

$200,000: A work on paper by Alexander Calder from 1967 at Pace

$150,000: A work on paper by Mary Corse at Kayne Griffin Corcoran

$150,000: Wolfgang Tillmans’s Silver 180 (2014) at Maureen Paley

$110,000: Carrie Mae Weems’s The Blues at Jack Shainman

$90,000: Robert Longo’s Study of Ferguson Protest XL (2019) at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac

$68,000: Gordon Parks’s Department Store, Mobile, Alabama (1956) at Jack Shainman

$65,000: Robert Longo’s Study of White Flowers/With Beethoven Page 9 (2018) at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac

$40,000 each: All 11 works from Kathryn Andrews’s series Hollywood Dahlia (2019) at David Kordansky

$15,000 each: Loie Hollowell’s drawings Red Pound Vibrating Over Green Mound, May 4; Mountain MountingSliced Head to Butt, and Boob Wheel (2015) at Pace

$7,500 each: All 40 of Sanya Kantarovsky’s watercolors in a solo booth at Stuart Shave Modern Art

 


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