Is NFS (Not for Sale) LA’s Most Exclusive Design Store?

‘I like anything that’s a conversation piece,’ Jonathan Pessin says, standing above a weathered, mint-green metal chair, its back formed from branches repli­cating a prickly pear cactus. We are in Pessin’s shop NFS, which he runs from the loft where he used to live. It’s a 1940s industrial building in Frogtown, squeezed between the LA River and the 5 Freeway. Pessin chose the shop’s name  –  an abbre­viation of ‘not for sale’  – for a number of reasons, including his penchant for wanting things others won’t sell and his reluctance to sell his own wares. ‘This is for sale,’ he admits of the cactus chair. ‘But I want to keep it.’ 

A self-proclaimed ‘high-end hoarder’, Pessin grew up in Boston, and moved to Los Angeles with aspirations of becoming an Albert Brooks-type multihyphenate. He already collected  – starting with rocks in childhood  – and excavated treasures from Southland’s flea markets, backyards and eccentric estate sales. While still working in film, he amassed enough items to open a store long before he actually launched NFS in 2014.

I have a real resistance to buying anything practical. Jonathan Pessin

By then, he had established relationships with designers such as Kelly Wearstler and Sally Breer, but new audiences consistently find NFS on Instagram or through word of mouth. Each time someone comes in, Pessin intends to just say hello and let them wander. ‘But I end up chatting,’ he says. ‘That’s the thing I find really stimulating: just talking to people about their relationships to objects.’ 

Lying flat on a shelf is a postcard-sized painting of a delicate cracked eggshell against a deep black abyss. It is signed, in slanted caps, A. Hansen. Neither Pessin nor I know who this is, and, the identity of the artist hardly matters. ‘I just want it to be visually interesting,’ Pessin says, adding that he’d like to focus more on art and objects and move away from furniture. ‘I have a real resistance to buying anything practical.’

Two years ago, at Show Gallery in West Hollywood, he curated a selection called ‘Uncomfortable Chairs’, the title indicative of the fact that he is not the person to help you find something soft to sink into. If you are looking for a soft sculpture, however, he has plenty. Hanging high up in one corner of NFS, a floppy fabric tableau protrudes from a rectangular frame. It looks like a box of misshapen eggs balancing on top of a cloud-like stool. It is a world unto itself. ‘People don’t really seem to have taken to that yet,’ Pessin remarks. And by the time they do, he probably won’t want to part with it. 

shopnfs.com | @shopnfs

This article first appeared in Frieze Week Los Angeles magazine with the title ‘Unique Selling Point’.

Further Information

Frieze Los Angeles, 20 – 23 February 2025, Santa Monica Airport.

Frieze is proud to support the LA Arts Community Fire Fund, led by the J. Paul Getty Trust. In addition to Frieze’s contribution, 10% of the value of all newly purchased tickets is also being donated to the fund. 

BUY TICKETS

To keep up to date on all the latest news from Frieze, sign up to the newsletter at frieze.com, and follow @friezeofficial on Instagram and Frieze Official on Facebook. 

Frieze Los Angeles is supported by global lead partner Deutsche Bank, continuing its legacy of celebrating artistic excellence on an international scale.

^{Main image: Jonathan Pessin at NFS, Los Angeles, 2024. Photo: Stephen Ross Goldstein}