by Keith Evans
Post-the art fairs, post-finding out what Banksy looks like, post-the start of a new war, I am catching a vibe. It is not the only vibe (what ever is?) but it is definitely a distinct current within the ebb and the flow, one with its own direction and temperature. And, surprisingly, it is a good vibe. It is a fun vibe, in fact. It is the vibe of fun itself. People are, for some reason and intentionally, showing art that is fun.
It is not making fun. It isn’t mean. This specific vibe of which I write is not politically satirical, art-worldishly in-jokey, Internettily snarky, or cutesily decorative or dripping with the aesthetic of luxurious exclusion, but it is also not, intentionally or otherwise, stupid. Those vibes exist, but are something else. It is fun by reasonable people who want you to have fun, too. This is work by artists who know their craft, know it well, know what they like and then—in defiance of nearly every pressure to direct their talents to other ends—have done no more than get to work carefully making it. I’m feeling the vibe from Melissa Rios’ candy-coated collage paintings at De Boer Gallery) overwhelming with mouth-feel), from the anticipation of what’s been dug up for Magdalena Frimkess’ upcoming show at Zwirner (which you don’t dare call naïve), from David Shull’s primary-colored bricolage among the deconstructed building-blocks of painting and sculpture over at Noon Projects, and from about half of the new Patrick Martinez’s that Charlie James is showing.
Martinez is an instructive case—his most urgently political works, such as a neighborhood watch neon saying “No Ice” and a green sign saying “By Any Means Necessary” (on display at this years’ Frieze) are by no means objectionable, but they’re also no surprise at all. Any artist with a talent for bending glass both could have and would have made them in this Year of Trump 2026. When he goes beyond mere messaging into mashing up sexy-‘80s neon Hollywood skylines with deliriously-colored Aztec imagery the result is richer altogether. We can be diverse and less bored. Like most truths that feel liberating this strikes us as important because it expresses a reality we already know whether we want to or not—Los Angelenos’ resistance culture has never been po-faced and no matter what they say when invited to lecture, after a long day in the studio or the streets, LA artists are going out. Always have, always will. Fun built this town, and we are scientists of it.
The other reason fun feels so desperately needed is something to do with demonstrating—at this late date, all of us scattered across a landscape increasingly defined and tended by heartless machines both metaphorical and literal—that art can actually do something, and efficiently. Whatever you can say about satire, ironic decor, or art-world in-jokes—and however much money they make—they haven’t done much for most of us lately. The deftly daft and genially colorful way Magdalena Frimkess paints Mickey Mouse is funny right now. And it asserts that a human being thought of it, did it, and did it in a way any other human being, art-educated or otherwise, can appreciate. This assertion, that things people can make with their hands have an unequivocal value and can bring an unequivocal joy, is perhaps a modest one. Perhaps it is a retrenchment, a sign of art falling back from ambitions to remake the world into a desire to simply keep it well-nourished, but after wandering decades in the desert real change has to start somewhere, even if it’s square one.
Image: Painting by Melissa Rios. Courtesy De Boer Gallery.
