February 18, 2026
In a sluggish art market, overinflated by speculation and the unsustainable growth of the ultracontemporary (i.e., emerging) artist sector, collectors are said to be contributing to a much-discussed “flight to quality,” That usually translates to resilient blue-chip paintings and prints by household names. Coinciding with the Frieze Los Angeles art fair, many prominent galleries are interpreting “flight to quality” as a return trip to whiteness, to maleness and toward artists that are middle-aged, senior or dead.
The Los Angeles gallery landscape, however, is nothing if not diverse. Below are five shows to see this month, in the spirit of Eileen Harris Norton’s collection, that belie the notion that quality is to be found only in the loftiest echelons of the international art market.
Ryan Preciado, a Los Angeles artist and designer, is a craftsman who draws on high-low influences, and who transgresses boundaries between fine art made for galleries and applied art made for domestic spaces. There is no better environment, perhaps, for his sculptures, textiles and furniture than the Hollyhock House, the ornate home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1918 for his patron Aline Barnsdall, who lived in it for only a year before donating it to the city as a house museum. Music is important to Preciado; “Diary of a Fly” is titled after a 1930s composition by Béla Bartók that echoes a fly’s frenetic movement. Preciado’s weavings are named for a 1980 album by the goth band Bauhaus. Sculptures painted in automotive lacquer nod to Chicano car culture, while an oak and leather chair is a humble tribute to Preciado’s Chumash heritage.
