SANTA MONICA, Calif. — Yesterday, February 26, Frieze LA kicked off with an exceptionally crowded opening and a reportedly brisk first day of sales at Santa Monica Airport. However, alongside the blue-chip paintings and emerging artists on view, the fair also illustrated — intentionally or not — issues being confronted outside of the tent, such as class, labor, and immigration. It made palpable the tension between the kind of capitalism that the art fair represents and which our art ecosystem rests upon — and indeed which artists need to survive — and the progressive values that many in the art world profess to support. Against such a backdrop, what is the role of the art fair?

Outside the tent, Amanda Ross-Ho rolled a monumental inflatable globe around a soccer field in “Untitled Orbit (MANUAL MODE)” (2026), her site-specific durational performance happening each day of the fair as part of Frieze Projects.…