The week in art news: Frieze LA goes ahead, artists reeling from TikTok ban drama, the world mourns David Lynch and more…

Frieze Los Angeles to go ahead following deadly fires. On Friday 17th January, organisers of the art fair announced that this year’s edition will go ahead despite the ongoing devastation of the wildfires across the city. The decision to host the fair at Santa Monica Airport from 20th-23rd February, just six weeks after the deadly fires began, came about after “careful consideration and extensive conversations with galleries, partners and city-wide stakeholders”, a spokesperson for the fair told The Art Newspaper. So far, the fires have killed at least 27 people and destroyed more than 7,500 structures, and have burned over 28,000 acres of land. Announcement of the news across social media has received mixed responses. Art collector Agnes Lew told Artnews that the fair should go ahead  to create a sense of normalcy, as “artists need to sellworks to carry on.” Many LA locals have bashed Frieze, criticising them on Instagram for “only caring about their potential financial losses” of cancelling, while others are pleased with the news, stating that “LA artists and businesses need all the support they can get right now.”

Artists reeling from TikTok ban drama. As most of us know, the US TikTok ban was rapidly reversed yesterday by new president Donald Trump, but while artists’ accounts are seemingly safe for now, they’re not happy with the government messing the app users about, mongering Sinophobia and potentially interfering with their livelihoods. “I think the fascistic characteristics the United States assigned to the Chinese government were a mere projection of itself – how can the United States ridicule China for having a ‘Great Firewall’ while stripping American citizens of access to a platform like TikTok?” Brett Park, a 23-year-old Asian-American artist told Artnet. “When voting on an extension and any future ban, our government needs to consider the effect this has on the tens of thousands of Americans who are financially reliant on their TikTok income,” artist and influencer Daphne Frizzle also told the publication.

The world continues to mourn David Lynch. The legendary filmmaker passed away on 16th January at age 78. The news hit the art world (and well beyond) hard, with many artists, musicians and writers flocking to social media to share their personal tributes to Lynch, and many publications sharing the impact he had on culture. “Lynch showed that life was fundamentally enigmatic and therefore impossible to fully understand,” Alex Greenberger wrote in a tribute for Artnews. “The filmmaker, artist and musician was at once a mystic and a master of this beautiful little ugly life,” Philippa Snow wrote for ArtReview. “I’m thinking about the crackling intensity of Lynch’s voice and how his films made me excited to dive into the messy, immense world of visual and cinematic art,” Jessica Gelt wrote for the Los Angeles Times.

Singapore Art Week kicks off. The third edition of Art SG launched on 17th January at the Marina Bay Sands Convention Center. According to Artnet, the confluence of fairs like Art SG and SEA Focus, as well as Sotheby’s Singapore sales, reveals Singapore’s “ambition to position itself as the market hub of Southeast Asia” and suggests “a growing base of collectors is here to stay.” Several galleries, including Lehmann Maupin and White Cube reported sales by the evening of the fair’s opening day, according to Artnews. Mae Anderson, chair of the board of Art Outreach, also reported to the publication that Singapore “is better prepared this time,” following the city-state’s previous attempt to establish itself as a commercial art capital with the now defunct Art Stage fair, which was abruptly canceled in 2019. Singapore Art Week will run until 26th January.

Seattle gallery fire damages Picassos, Goyas and Rembrandts. A fire at Davidson Galleries in Seattle’s Pioneer Square neighborhood may have damaged artworks by Pablo Picasso, M.C. Escher, Rembrandt and Francisco Goya. According to the Seattle Times, Seattle Fire Department investigators have confirmed that the incident was an accident, “likely caused by someone who started a fire to keep warm in the alley behind the building.” Luckily, nobody was harmed, but staff members estimate more than 100 artworks were affected by the blaze, as well as the building itself, which suffered “significant” damage. Davidson Galleries specialises in artworks on paper – including woodcuts, etchings and lithographs – and houses around 16,000 works with an estimated worth of over $1M, with its oldest pieces dating back to the 1400s. Gallery manager Rebecca McDonald told the Seattle Times that they “have insurance, but we love what we do, and we love the art. That’s what’s breaking our heart. This is irreplaceable artwork.” The full extent of the damage is still being assessed.

Guerrilla Girls open their first New York commercial gallery show. The anonymous feminist art collective opened ‘Discrimi-NATION: Guerrilla Girls on Bias, Money, and Art’ at Hannah Traore Gallery on the Lower East Side on 16th January. The show features a range of poster works that mark the first time the collective has exhibited in a commercial gallery space and their first show in the Lower East Side in ten years. “The market is still the domain of famous male artists who still get more money than equally famous women artists. But things have changed a lot since we started. When we started, there were no women and people of colour in galleries,” a Guerrilla Girls founding member, who uses the pseudonym Käthe Kollwitz, told The Art Newspaper. Most of the works in the show aren’t for sale, but money “was never what was in it for me,” Traore said to TAR. “For me, it was the honour of working with the Guerrilla Girls and bringing the Guerrilla Girls back to New York and introducing them to my younger audiences who would be inspired by their work.”

UPDATE: bankrupt Galerie Thomas may have debts in the “double-digit million range”. The Munich gallery has been under a lot of heat this month for fraud, breach of trust and insolvency issues. Authorities now estimate that the outstanding debt owed to creditors by the gallery is upward of $10M. Victims of the gallery’s delayed insolvency are calling for “the other creditors to agree on a joint approach,” Eckart Lingenauber, a former gallery owner in Düsseldorf and Paris, told Artnet. “Based on the information available so far, I do not expect that we private creditors can expect even a small portion of our claims to be reimbursed,” he added. According to Handelsblatt, an insolvency specialist who has been working with the gallery since the summer has been seeking an investor to buy all or part of the company – so far, unsuccessfully.