Who Went Shopping at Frieze Los Angeles? We Buttonholed J.Lo and A-Rod, Usher, Leonardo DiCaprio and Other Famous Names at the Fair

On the preview day of the second annual Frieze Los Angeles fair,
guests weren’t just gossiping about which galleries were making big
sales—they were also keeping track of the bold-face names prowling
the aisles. Jason Statham and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley were there,
as well as James Corden, Amy Poehler, Katie Couric, A$AP Rocky, and
Natalie Portman, to name just some of the art-savvy celebs in
attendance. Artnet News managed to track down a few of the stars
and glean a little bit about what they were admiring, buying, and
coveting.

Jennifer Lopez and Alex
Rodriguez

Perhaps the most talked about celebrity sighting of the day was
former baseball star Alex Rodriguez and actress and singer Jennifer
Lopez, fresh off her much-talked about performance with Shakira at
the Super Bowl halftime show.

The couple, who announced their engagement last March, got a
whirlwind tour of the fair from their art advisor, Jeanne Greenberg
Rohatyn of New York’s Salon 94. Among their highlights was
Genevieve Gaignard at Vielmetter Los Angeles, where the
Rodiguez and Lopez bought a work, the gallery confirmed, before
posing for photographs with the young artist, whose work addresses
race, class, and
gender.

“They love the energy [of the fair]. A-Rod is coming back later
this afternoon,” Greenberg Rohatyn told Artnet News. “They want to
support young local artists. They bought a few small pieces.”

Rodriguez and Lopez also chatted with Per Skarstedt about the
work of George Condo. “[Rodriguez] owns a Condo. He owns Keith
Haring and Richard Prince,” the dealer told Artnet News. “He’s a
nice guy.”

Waris Ahluwalia and Russell
Young

A fixture on the New York art scene, actor and designer Waris
Ahluwalia didn’t make it to Frieze Los Angeles last year.

“I’m a first-timer,” he told Artnet News. “There’s a lot
more people than I expected. It’s crowded!”

He was visiting with artist Russell Young, who currently has a
show at local art gallery Art Angels. And Ahluwalia had work in the
fair, in a way.

“We’re doing a tea service in the Backlot,” he said. Was that
the $27 tea vending machine at the MATCHESFashion shop, I
wondered?

“You’re talking about $27? I feel like maybe the $27 tin of tea
there will do you more good than some of the work that’s up on the
walls. I think you’re concerned it’s too cheap for this
space!” Ahluwalia joked. “The tea is sourced from all over the
world. The ones we’re selling here are functional blends to help
you address deficiencies in love and clarity and focus and rest.”
Well in that case.

Michael Ealy

“My wife and I are new collectors. I came with Nathaniel Mary
Quinn,” actor Michael Ealy told Artnet News. “I don’t know much
about what I’m doing right now!”

Walking the aisle with Quinn was both a blessing and a curse, he
admitted. “We literally just got here about ten minutes ago, and we
haven’t been able to see much because he keeps getting stopped
every five feet. He’s the celebrity here today—I’m just the
bodyguard.”

A first-time visitor, Ealy was excited to see what the fair had
to offer. “I’m hoping to see something that kind of blows my mind,”
he said. “It’s hard. There’s so many people here! But I’m sure
there are beautiful things.”

Maria
Sharapova

Tennis star Maria Sharapova was headed to the Frieze Backlot
when Artnet News stopped to ask her if she collected art.

“Yeah, for fun,” she responded. “I have a Lita Albuquerque. I
collect a lot of my friends. I find art very personal and touching,
so  [it’s] things that I either have history with or people I
have connected with.”

Luann de
Lesseps

The longtime star of Bravo’s The Real Housewives of New
York City was an early arrival at the fair, where her niece,
Nicole Nadeau, was one of the featured artists in the Street & the
Shop, art critic Michael Slenske’s pop-up in the Frieze
Backlot.

It was her first time at Frieze LA, but the countess, as she’s
known to her fans, started her collection some 15 or 16 years ago,
at Art Basel Miami Beach. “My first piece was a James Welling,” she told Artnet News.
“Today, I’m not looking at anything in particular, so far, but I’m
loving it.”

De Lesseps and her niece were walking the aisles with Kim
Heirston, de Lesseps’s longtime art advisor—who said that the
Welling was still a keeper, with the artist now showing with David
Zwirner—and her daughter, Victoria de Lesseps, also an artist.

“It’s funny. We have an art family for sure,” the younger de
Lesseps said. Her brother, Noel de Lesseps is an artist as well,
and Nadeau is curating a booth of his work for SPRING/BREAK Art
Show next month in New York.

The Weeknd

At the back of the Frieze tent, we snuck a quick photo of the
Weeknd, who gave us a thumbs and smiled when asked how he was
enjoying the fair, but declined an interview with Artnet News. He
was, on the other hand, happy to speak to the equally press-adverse
Leonardo DiCaprio when they bumped into each other in the
aisles.

Leonardo
DiCaprio

A regular on the art-fair circuit, DiCaprio typically does his
best to blend in to the crowd, but his hoodie-over-baseball cap
look is so well known by now that it renders him more conspicuous
than ever. Moving booth to booth with a trio of guy friends, the
actor paused to admire—and photograph—millennial art star Avery
Singer’s paintings at Hauser & Wirth before lingering in front
of Pace and Kayne Griffin Corcoran’s joint presentation of light
works by James Turrell.

Had he ever visited Roden Crater, the artist’s long-running
project in Arizona’s Painted Desert, Artnet News asked? “No,
unfortunately not,” one of his friends responded, stepping forward
to block access to DiCaprio, who studiously avoided making eye
contact while backing away.

Usher

Not all the stars came with a full entourage. As the afternoon
wore on, Usher was spotted chatting with a staffer at Eva
Presenhuber. The gallery had already sold out its booth of Ugo
Rondinone, to the disappointment of the singer, a first-time Frieze
LA visitor.

“Everything I had my eye on was already spoken for,” Usher told
Artnet News. “But what’s beautiful is that all the artists who are
here, you can commission work.”

He didn’t leave empty-handed, however. Activist artist Michele
Pred handed him a signed dollar bill, painted pink and stamped with
the words “Equal Pay,” offering a quick elevator pitch about her
new initiative calling on women artists to increase their prices by 15
percent to help correct the gender pay gap. Usher smiled and
shook her hand before continuing on his way.

Frieze Los Angeles will take place at Paramount Pictures
Studios, entrance at Lot B 5400 Melrose Avenue or 801 N Gower
Street, Los Angeles, February 13–16, 2020.

The post Who Went Shopping at Frieze Los Angeles? We
Buttonholed J.Lo and A-Rod, Usher, Leonardo DiCaprio and Other
Famous Names at the Fair appeared first on artnet
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