Perhaps the most high-profile fair to debut in Los Angeles during the kickoff week of Pacific Standard Time is Art Platform — Los Angeles. The fair, run by art-fair conglomerate MMPI, boasts some 70 exhibitors, including Marc Selwyn Fine Art, Richard Telles Fine Art, and Peres Projects. It is a major contribution to the L.A. art calender. But, at the same time, in some ways, L.A. remains a tough nut to crack, and a few local galleries that had originally signed on to participate and were touted in promotional materials — Cherry and Martin, Honor Fraser, and David Kordansky — backed out of the new endeavor in the final months of summer.

Some galleries reportedly became uneasy when Platform, which had marketed itself as a cutting-edge contemporary fair, took on more modern galleries and began billing itself as both a "modern and contemporary" fair. Others were preoccupied with other fairs — Frieze is only 10 days away — and, in the case of David Kordansky, opening a second neighborhood space. (Honor Fraser still has a presence at the fair's L.A. Mart location through a room-size Gustavo Godoy piece it installed several weeks ago, though the gallery is no longer officially participating in Platform.)

Platform director Adam Gross confirmed that the galleries did pull out of the fair, but said he expects any lingering skepticism from galleries to fade pending a successful debut. "We want to embrace local galleries as much as we can, but the proof is in the pudding, as they say," he told ARTINFO. "I can't speak for the reasons they pulled out but I can say galleries around the world are waking up to what's happening in Los Angeles." (In an interview with ARTINFO yesterday, Cornell DeWitt, director of the weekend's other new fair, Pulse Los Angeles, described the L.A. gallerists as "skeptical" and "jaded" about the prospects of new fairs.)

Art Platform was envisioned as a combination of contemporary and historical galleries from the beginning, according to MMPI VP of Art Fairs Paul Morris — the uniting factor was that all galleries were encouraged to bring work connected in some way to California. "The Getty has this scholarly initiative that has taken them a decade. We were thinking, to create a greater synergy between the fair and the museums, it would be great if we asked the galleries to really think about California material," he explained. "I, for one, am going to walk through Paul Schimmel's show" — MOCA's "Under the Big Black Sun: California Art 1974-1981" — "and wonder, 'Where can I buy this work?'"

A sneak peek of Platform reveals that many of PST's stars are indeed well represented. A Joe Goode canvas similar to one on view at MOCA is for sale at Manny Silverman Gallery, Michael Rosenfeld Gallery has mounted a strong solo presentation of Betye Saar, and a 1960s Larry Bell light box is a high point at Brown + Nye. Los Angeles's The Box is presenting work by John Altoon, while a luscious, lacquered Judy Chicago painting reminiscent of one in the Getty's anchor exhibition "Crosscurrents in L.A. Painting and Sculpture" is on view at David Richard Contemporary.

Morris, for one, is confident that Pacific Standard Time will have an enduring effect on the market for these artists, as well as their contemporary counterparts. "The more people know and recognize and understand the value of these artists, the more the value will go up," he said. Perhaps Art Platform will be the first chance to see if that predication comes to pass.