LOS ANGELES, CA.- The Hammer Museum announces the recipients of the three Made in L.A. 2014 Mohn Awards. Alice Könitz, creator of The Los Angeles Museum of Art, receives the $100,000 Mohn Award honoring artistic excellence; Magdalena Suarez Frimkess and Michael Frimkess receive the $25,000 Career Achievement Award honoring brilliance and resilience; and Jennifer Moon receives the $25,000 Public Recognition Award determined by public vote. A jury of professional curators selected the Mohn Award and the Career Achievement Award while the Public Recognition Award was determined through a public vote through on-site voting from June 14–August 17. This year there was a total of 6,604 votes, over three times the amount of votes cast in 2012. All three awards are funded through the generosity of Los Angeles philanthropists and art collectors Jarl and Pamela Mohn in conjunction with Made in L.A. 2014, the Hammer’s biennial exhibition series highlighting emerging and under-recognized artists from the Los Angeles region on view through September 7.

The jury wrote the following about their choices:

Los Angeles Museum of Art
In a biennial of exceptional artwork, Alice Könitz’s Los Angeles Museum of Art stands out as exemplary of an artistic practice that not only affects other artists through collaboration, but enriches the art community through questioning the purpose and role of a museum. In addition to the elegantly designed, sculptural display systems and the well-selected artworks that they house, we believe that Könitz’s practice is timely and deserves recognition. As the art market increasingly dominates the contemporary art world, artists such as Könitz are inventing new ways of operating and creating their own contexts. We hope that the award will go toward expanding the project and supporting more artists.

Magdalena Suarez Frimkess and Michael Frimkess
We wanted to recognize Magdalena Suarez Frimkess and Michael Frimkess for their many years of collaborative ceramic work. Though they have been working under the radar for much of that time, their work and artistic longevity have been an inspiration to younger artists. This award proves that persistence and belief in art-making is a worthy pursuit.

Made in L.A. 2014 highlighted a number of collective groups and artists whose way of working initiates networks of practice and discourse throughout the city. Among international art centers, Los Angeles is characterized by artists creating community. “These deserving artists capture the vibrancy and diversity of what is happening in Los Angeles today – from the inventive Los Angeles Museum of Art, a collaboration initiated by Alice Könitz, to the captivating and delightful ceramics of Magdalena and Michael Frimkess, to the hands-down crowd favorite Jennifer Moon,” remarks Hammer Director Annie Philbin. “I am ever grateful to Jarl and Pamela Mohn who are the quintessential boosters and celebrators of L.A. artists across multiple disciplines and generations."

THE MOHN AWARD │Jury award honoring artistic excellence
The Los Angeles Museum of Art (LAMOA) is a combined artist’s project and experimental exhibition venue with three sculptural systems designed specifically to showcase Könitz’s own collection as well as borrowed and commissioned artworks. LAMOA represents a significant trend among artists in Los Angeles and beyond that bucks an increasingly market-driven art world in favor of collaborative, critically engaged work. The Mohn Award will be granted over two years to Könitz and will be accompanied by the publication of a monograph about her work that will be distributed to key influential international curators, critics, gallerists, museums, and collectors.

CAREER ACHIEVEMENT AWARD │Jury award honoring brilliance and resilience
Magdalena Suarez Frimkess and Michael Frimkess have been working together since 1963. Michael obsessively pursues the art of throwing traditional pottery while Magdalena paints the surfaces of the pots with her elaborate glazed compositions. Their fifty-year body of collaborative work engages many genres—pottery, outsider art, mythology, pop—all of which fail to quantify its beautiful urgency and unique renewal of the ceramic tradition.

PUBLIC RECOGNITION AWARD │Awarded by public vote
Jennifer Moon blends political theory, self-help, and fantasy to create the Revolution, a movement that envisions a worldwide shift in thinking through love, presence of mind, and empowerment. Through performance, video, writing and sculpture, Moon shares and disseminates her unconventional perspective.

JURY
• Jack Bankowsky, Artforum editor-at-large, independent curator, and art critic

• Naomi Beckwith, the Marilyn and Larry Fields Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago

• Apsara DiQuinzio, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art and Phyllis C. Wattis MATRIX Curator at the University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Jarl and Pamela Mohn are art collectors committed to supporting emerging L.A. artists. Professionally, Jarl Mohn divides his time between being a corporate director and advisor to a number of media companies, making direct early stage angel and seed investments in digital media/technology ventures, and managing The Mohn Family Foundation—the philanthropic entity that he and his wife created in 2000. In addition to supporting arts initiatives, the Mohn Family Foundation funded the Mohn Broadcast Center for KPCC, a significant contribution to Public Radio in Southern California. Mohn is the former Chair of the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, and the former Chair of The Annenberg School at USC.

Previously he was the founding President and CEO of Liberty Digital, a public company that invested in the internet and digital media. Prior to Liberty Digital, Mohn created E! Entertainment Television serving as its President and CEO from January 1990 to December 1998. Mohn was formerly Executive Vice President and General Manager of MTV and VH1 from 1986 to 1990 where he led the transformation from music videos to long form programming. Prior to his career in television, Mohn had a 19-year career in radio. He began as a disc jockey and rose through the ranks as a programmer, general manager, and then owner of a group of radio stations.

Originally from Doylestown, Pennsylvania, Mohn attended Philadelphia’s Temple University where he studied mathematics and philosophy. He currently lives in Brentwood with his wife. Jarl and Pamela Mohn's commitment to the awards extends through the first five cycles of Made in L.A. with the option to continue beyond.