A CITYWIDE PARADE OF PAINTING, MEMORY, SPECTACLE, AND CARE UNFOLDS AS LOS ANGELES OPENS ITS DOORS TO ART THAT FEELS AND LINGERS.
Frieze Week in Los Angeles has a way of sharpening the senses. Studded throughout the city, exhibitions gather momentum—some expansive and archival, others intimate and newly restless. Together, they trace a portrait of artists reckoning with history, image-making, desire, and the charged atmospheres of now. These shows hum alongside one another, offering moments of stillness, friction, and surprise. Below, a guide to what’s worth stepping into while the city is wide awake.
Ken Gun Min’s latest paintings immerse viewers in profoundly layered environments where ornament, symbolism, and material intersect. Cascading across richly colored canvases embellished with embroidery, beading, and hand-applied elements, Min conducts encounters between figures, animals, and landscapes imbued with historical and emotional suspense. The exhibition centers on a sweeping, double-sided folding screen inspired by East Asian byōbu and byeongpung traditions, presenting a rainbow-hued scene on one side and a minimalistic, nearly monochrome tree on the other. From moment to moment, motifs gathered from European hunting imagery, Korean folklore, and political history intersect, while recurring animal figures—notably the tiger—appear as sites of fortitude and metamorphosis. Botanical realms function as connective tissue, holding yearning, anguish, and remembrance within intentional suspension.
What we love: The way in which Min turns an astronomical phenomenon into an emotional climate, transforming a darkened sun—heavy with onyx and lace—into a poignant symbol of collective grief that still manages to glow.
Ken Gun Min at Nazarian / Curcio
February 21 – March 28, 2026
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