Essence Harden—an artist, curator and writer—is deeply rooted in the art scene of Los Angeles, where she lives and works as a visual arts curator at the California African American Museum. After taking on that role, she said that she looked forward to “highlighting the work of collectors and collectives, and cultivating scholarship, on Black visual culture and the West”. This year, Harden is the curator of the Focus section at Frieze Los Angeles, bringing together 12 galleries that have all opened in the past dozen years. Most of the artists in the section, organised around the theme of “ecology”, are represented by Californian galleries, and they all make work with which Harden says she has a “deep relationship”. Harden walked us through some of her highlights in the section.
Muzae Sesay, Kamara Fountain (2024), Diamond Dock (2024)
pt.2 Gallery (pictured at top of page)
Muzae Sesay, who was born in Long Beach and now lives in Oakland, presents a series of paintings that reference his Sierra Leonean heritage. His warm tones and idealised architectural forms create a dreamlike vision of a “non-colonised Sierra Leone”, Harden says, and the sense of an “equitable space”, adding, “I love his colour palette and the way he extracts geography.”
Widline Cadet, Sòti nan gran lanmou (2023), Nazarian / Curcio
Widline Cadet, Sòti nan gran lanmou (2023), at Nazarian / Curcio Eric Thayer
The photographer Widline Cadet, who was born in Haiti and is based in Los Angeles, presents a series of works that reinterpret her family’s archive. In this image, she depicts her mother’s wedding dress—the wearer turned away—highlighting a sense of “protection and care” from the gaze of the viewer. “The way that Los Angeles becomes blurred with Haiti in this work is really interesting when thinking about diaspora,” Harden says. “We don’t really think about the two places being connected, but here, Los Angeles looks like home and feels like home.”
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