Robert Szot, Palisades, 2025, Oil and metal leaf on linen, 80 x 74 in

By Basha Shapiro, Art Markets Co-Editor of MADE IN BED & Past ARG Intern

As wildfires raged through Los Angeles in January, leaving destruction in their wake, the city’s artist community came together—not just to mourn and grieve, but to rebuild and uplift one another. I spoke with several LA-based art market professionals about the impact of the fires, exploring themes of loss, risk management, insurance challenges, and Frieze LA.

“There’s the financial aspect—the loss of raw materials, a space to work—but really, it’s the loss of completed works that you spent countless hours on. You can never get those back.”

– Robert Szot

Szot told me about a piece he had been working on at the time the fires broke out, “[There] was a painting I had been working on for about six weeks and was struggling to figure out. I finished that painting that week [that the fires started], and I looked at it and thought, ‘there is something emotional about this painting that I didn’t see before’. I began to realize that it was connected to my father, who died about three years ago. His first house was in the Palisades, and he used to talk about having bought that house as a young man. [I’m] thinking about him in that house, and I’m thinking about the current conditions of the Palisades, how that neighborhood has just been kind of wiped off the face of the earth. I looked at this painting differently. And when I look at it now it’s always going to be that stark reminder of that week. The painting is actually called Palisades.”

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