Just under two weeks ago, we threw an intimate cocktail party with the designer-home rental site Boutique inside a 1958 Neutra house in the Hollywood Hills, complete with wraparound glass walls offering an outrageously amazing view over the sparkling nighttime skyline of L.A. The crowd was mostly art- and design-industry folks, and everyone was in a remarkably good mood — some of them because they’d just flown in to the West Coast from colder climes, but most because it was a sort of unofficial kickoff to Frieze week in L.A., the only time of year when the city provides said art and design folks with a robust events schedule full of opportunities to repeatedly mingle with old friends and new, eat lots of free food, and of course, see great work. The action centers around the Frieze Los Angeles art fair itself, which just wrapped its especially color-soaked fifth edition, but at the same time encompasses the Felix Art Fair at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, the city’s ever-growing roster of art and design galleries, and a host of other exhibitions and events that pop up around them.

There was a lot to digest — and to love — this year. London gallery Fumi took over Sized Studio‘s space for a temporary engagement that began with a group show and crescendoed, just before Frieze started, with a suite of Max Lamb furniture made from disused cardboard boxes. Sized exhibited instead inside a very raw former Howard Hughes building, filling it with all-black show cars and letting the French culinary pop-up We Are Ona serve dinner amidst them (on a long mirrored table created by Willo Perron and show sponsor USM). The Future Perfect paired the work of new talents Ian Collings, Alana Burns, and Minjae Kim with select pieces by Isamu Noguchi and JB Blunk, while Carpenters Workshop opted for a solo show of new furniture by Vincenzo De Cotiis. Bennett Schlesinger expanded his repertoire beyond paper-shade lights in a presentation at Marta gallery, debuting wood furniture whose surfaces softly dipped down around inlaid slabs of colored ceramic, and Jason Koharik presented new lighting and furniture with Rhett Baruch. Christopher Farr introduced new rugs by The Elder Statesman, and The Pit opened a brand new, sprawling gallery space on the Atwater/Glendale border.

It was all well and good, but we’d be remiss not to mention that we were upset — as we often are — over the lack of women spotlit in this year’s design projects, which is why we were especially happy to make one of our last stops of the week: a solo show of Barbora Žilinskaitė’s whimsical figurative furniture at Friedman Benda‘s L.A. outpost, where we finally got to meet the designer in person after publishing one of the first stories on her work nearly three and a half years ago. See excerpts of her newest pieces below, along with the shows mentioned above, and a long list of artworks that caught our attention at Frieze and Felix.

Bennett Schlesinger at Marta Los Angeles

Max Lamb at Fumi LA

Barbora Žilinskaitė at Friedman Benda

The Elder Statesman x Christopher Farr

Shay Brediman and Jason Koharik at Rhett Baruch Gallery

Shay Brediman Jason Koharik

Vincenzo De Cotiis at Carpenters Workshop

Photos: Nicky Roding and Jean Pierre Vallaincourt

JB Blunk, Isamu Noguchi Alana Burns, Ian Collings, and Minjae Kim at The Future Perfect

Sized Selects

Photos: Carter Williams

We Are Ona dinner at Sized Selects

The Pit

Sight Unseen x Boutique

Frieze Los Angeles

Carrie Moyer at Alexander Gray AssociatesKim Yun Shin at Lehmann Maupin Allison Schulnik at The Pit Margot Bergman at Anton Kern GalleryEd Clark at Hauser & Wirth

Dianna Molzan at Kaufmann RepettoLaura Soto at The Box Tony Smith at Pace Kenneth Noland at Pace Rosha Yaghmai at Pace Brent Wadden at Pace

Felix

JPW3 at Shoot the Lobster Cheryl Pope at Monique Meloche Hayley Barker at Night Gallery Dee Clements at Nina Johnson Gallery Christine Burgon at Sebastian Gladstone Jessy Razafimandimby at Sans Titre