The following is a press release from the City of Santa Monica:
The city will acquire a new artwork for its municipal Art Bank collection this month, thanks to a continued partnership with international art fair Frieze Los Angeles.
The partnership began in 2023 with the city welcoming Frieze Los Angeles to its new location at the Santa Monica Airport and saw the acquisition of “Bajio,” by Wilmington-based artist Edgar Ramirez.
With the return of Frieze Los Angeles to Santa Monica Feb. 29 through March 3, an additional artwork will be selected and announced on the opening day of the fair.
“We are excited to welcome Frieze Los Angeles back to Santa Monica and work with the Santa Monica Arts Commission to acquire a new work to the Art Bank,” Recreation and Arts Director Jenny Rogers said. “With the Art Bank having a legacy of supporting emerging and underrepresented Southern California artists, this partnership to acquire a work from the Frieze Los Angeles’ Focus section is in alignment with our priorities and we hope to continue the partnership in the future.”
The artwork will be from the fair’s Focus section, which includes works by Southern California-based artists. Curated by Visual Arts Curator and Program Manager of the California African American Museum Essence Harden, the section is themed this year around “Ecologies,” exploring the environment, interdependent systems, cultures and histories in diverse offerings from galleries founded within the last 12 years.
“We are proud to renew our partnership with the city of Santa Monica to acquire a work by Southern California-based artist for the city’s much loved Art Bank collection,” Frieze Director of Americas Christine Messineo said. “The partnership extends Frieze’s commitment to supporting local artists, as well as aiding in the promotion and accessibility of public art, ensuring that creativity thrives and enriches the cultural landscape of this dynamic city.”
Santa Monica’s Art Bank collection was instituted in 1984 to bring art into Santa Monica’s public spaces and is funded through the city of Santa Monica’s Percent for Art Program. The Art Bank contains more than 200 works — including sculpture, painting, photography and works on paper — by such notable artists as Laura Aguilar, Lita Albuquerque, Charles Gaines, Kerry James Marshall, Linda Vallejo and other artists active in Southern California.
The collection also incorporates gifts of artwork received by the city over the course of the last century, including 18th and 19th-century landscape and portrait paintings and preparatory drawings and maquettes by artists commissioned to make public art in Santa Monica. The acquisition of artworks to the city’s collection has helped support many artists of the Southern California region.
More about Frieze Los Angeles at frieze.com/fairs/frieze-los-angeles.
Visit the full city of Santa Monica Art Bank collection at publicartarchive.org/search/collections/Santa-Monica-Art-Bank.
