The LA Art Show returns 7th–11th January 2026, with an unmistakably international flavor. For a fair regarded primarily as an independent local anchor — and a prelude to the region’s annual art-fair season — the 31st edition signals a decisive realignment toward global relevance, positioning Los Angeles as a global focal point rather than a regional outpost.
This year’s fair features a Latin American Pavilion curated by Marisa Caichiolo, who describes the project as foregrounding artists engaged with themes of memory, migration, and identity. Participating galleries include Artier Fine Art, presenting work that reimagines ancestral mythologies, and Verse Gallery, which will show Maca Vivas’s exploration of femininity in Fluffy Crown.
Caichiolo also leads the fair’s returning non-commercial platform, DIVERSEartLA. This year’s presentation, titled The Biennials and Art Institutions in the Contemporary Art Ecosystem, will feature five installations and a video homage to influential global biennials. Later in 2026, Caichiolo will co-curate Chile’s official pavilion at the 61st Venice Biennale of Art.
“Rooted in LA’s diversity and immigrant communities, these platforms expand the city’s cultural conversations across borders,” Caichiolo wrote in an email. “As curator my goal is to establish a coherent through-line — a cross-continental view — of how power, representation and provenance operate across geographies.”
That curatorial focus carries real-world implications. Given fluctuating US immigration policies and travel restrictions, Caichiolo confirmed that organizers are taking “proactive steps” to support participants who may face challenges entering or exiting the country. Measures include invitation letters for visas, personalized support, and clear protocols around shipping, insurance and lending. Flexible scheduling, on-site assistance, and contingency plans — such as remote presentations via video — are also being developed.
The fair has confronted crisis before. The February 2025 edition notably included the exhibition Breathing Resilience featuring artists who had lost homes or studios in the Los Angeles wildfires that devastated the region weeks earlier.
Against this backdrop, the 2026 fair will host more than 90 exhibitors, including its first Irish participant, Oliver Sears Gallery, alongside UK exhibitors Pontone Gallery, John Martin Gallery and Quantum Contemporary Art. Over a dozen Korean galleries are also slated to exhibit, reinforcing the fair’s transnational scope.
Among the highlights are Switzerland’s LICHT FELD Gallery, presenting Karl A. Meyer’s 1980s Crosby Street woodcuts — shown publicly for the first time in more than four decades — and Corridor Contemporary’s cinematic portraits by Israeli artist Yigal Ozeri. Art of Contemporary Africa will present works by Dr. Esther Mahlangu, 90, for the first time as a solo artist in Los Angeles. Widely regarded as South Africa’s most internationally recognized visual artist, she produces large-scale, boldly colored paintings drawing on Ndebele visual traditions.
True to Los Angeles, a measure of show business remains in the mix. Palm Beach’s Provident Fine Art will present abstract works by Sylvester Stallone — appointed by President Trump as one of his “special ambassadors to Hollywood” — while John Martin Gallery will exhibit Painting and Biking in London and LA, a series by Clash bassist Paul Simonon tracing his long-standing connection to biker culture.
Kassandra Voyagis, the LA Art Show’s director and producer, describes Los Angeles as “not just an entertainment capital, but a deeply layered cultural ecosystem.” In an email she added: “At its core, the fair reflects LA’s role as a global crossroads shaped by migration, experimentation and community-driven practice. What distinguishes LA Art Show is that it mirrors the city itself: expansive, inclusive and resistant to a single narrative.”
Asked to assess the art market as 2026 begins, Voyagis characterized it as “measured, selective and values-driven.” Rather than overheated, she suggested, the market favors long-term thinking —framing fairs like LA Art Show not only as marketplaces, but as cultural conveners.
With Los Angeles’s February fair season looming — Frieze Los Angeles alongside satellite fairs including Felix, Post-Fair, The Other Art Fair and Startup Art Fair — the LA Art Show now functions less as a regional warm-up than as an opening statement embracing its role as an early, geopolitically attuned event.
LA Art Show, 7th January – 11th January, Los Angeles Convention Center @laartshow
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Jane Horowitz is a Los Angeles-based arts journalist whose writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, L.A. Daily News, Whitehot magazine and Art NowLA, among others. Her reporting spans the contemporary art world, with interviews featuring artists such as Amy Sherald and Elmgreen & Dragset. In addition to her editorial work, Jane brings two decades of experience in digital content strategy and management. You can find samples of her writing at janehorowitz.com/writing.
