Thursday, February 26, 2026 at 1:00 PM to Sunday, March 1, 2026 at 1:00 PM
Bel Ami, Asian Center
For the 2026 edition of Frieze Los Angeles, Bel Ami presents new paintings, drawings, and sculptures by Soshiro Matsubara. When Matsubara arrived in Vienna as a student enrolled in the Academy of Fine Arts, he immersed himself in Western European art from the early 20th century and became fascinated by the figures of the Vienna Secession and Symbolist movements, namely Oskar Kokoschka and Fernand Khnopff. All forms of romanticism seemed at once irresistible and outlandish to Matsubara—which may be why his paintings and sculptures of tragic heroes and entwined lovers seem elegant at first, and slyly satirical upon closer inspection. Infused with cultural commentary, his creations preserve the beguiling luster of romanticism, and evade the grime of realism despite their verisimilitude. Even when Matsubara depicts extreme acts of obsession and longing, the work retains a cool beauty.Matsubara’s compositions both privilege and mock human subjectivity, offering compact material metaphors for codependency, kinship, introspection, and dandyism. A nuanced view of objectification is central to his project. Especially in his sculptures—which often resemble, or in fact repurpose, found mannequin heads—the boundaries between inanimate objects and living bodies are softened. Busts and statuettes are endowed with identity, spirit, and an organic sense of wholeness, even as they are supported by improvised armatures that betray their inertia.