The Best Booths at Felix LA, from Denim Sculptures to Minimalist Assemblages
BY MAXIMILÍANO DURÓN
On Wednesday morning, the Felix Art Fair opened the doors to its 2025 edition at the iconic Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. Though there was still a line for the elevators to get to the hotel’s 11th and 12th floors where about two-thirds of exhibitors are, the mood at the fair seemed more subdued than last year, with the Roosevelt’s narrow hallways less claustrophobic than usual. (Even the pool was temporarily closed.) Even still, most dealers reported that many works in their rooms-cum-booths had found buyers and that the fair so far had been a success. With January’s wildfires devastating many in Los Angeles, and putting this week’s fairs in jeopardy, the success of Frieze and Felix feels more meaningful and even necessary this time around.
Below, a look at the best booths on view at Felix LA, which runs through February 23.
Christy Gast at Nina Johnson
Denim is in at Nina Johnson’s booth. Spread across the cabana hotel room and patio are three soft sculptures by Upstate New York–based artist Christy Gast. Implicit in these disembodied legs is the sexuality and curvature of the body. The only floor work of the three, La noche está estrellada (2025), is fabricated to be kneeling, with a disco-cover where the wearer’s waist should be. There’s an implied sexual innuendo to the fact that the sculpture is kneeling, even if the imagined person’s gender identity is unknown. Nearby is a wall-hung sculpture, Four Button Fly (2024), in which four pairs of jeans twist into each other—an orgy or a polycule perhaps. Gast made these jeans herself, using denim she treated with chemicals so she could press various flora onto them to give them an ethereal woodsy feel.
On the patio is Asses & Angels (2023) showing three twisting pairs of jeans with green bandanas sticking out of the back pockets. They’re smeared with what appears to be dirt stains but are hand painted gouache marks by the artist; it has a rough and tumble kind of vibe to it. Per the queer hanky code, the green handkerchief would signify a call for sex work; which pocket one wears it in would determine if you are seeking or offering sex work. That the bandana is draped (and coated in resin) and extends from one pocket to the other adds to the ambiguity.
