The Hammer Museum is pleased to announce that three awards will be presented 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. The exhibition will be on view at the Hammer Museum June 15 – September 7, 2014. Expanding on the format of the 2012 biennial, the three awards are The Mohn Award, the Career Achievement Award—both of which will be selected by a professional jury—and the Public Recognition Award, which will be determined through a public vote. All three awards are funded through the generosity of Los Angeles philanthropists and art collectors Jarl and Pamela Mohn and the Mohn Family Foundation. All of the artists in the exhibition are eligible to receive the awards. The list of artists participating in Made in L.A. 2014 will be announced in late February.

“In 2012, at the launch of Made in L.A., Jarl and Pamela made an extremely generous gift supporting emerging and overlooked Los Angeles artists with the inauguration of The Mohn Award. Now, with these two additional awards, they are expanding their support of the local creative community even more deeply," remarks Hammer Director Annie Philbin.

The Mohn Award│Jury award honoring artistic excellence

Created in conjunction with the inaugural Made in L.A. exhibition in 2012, the $100,000 Mohn Award will be granted over two years to an artist from the exhibition and will be accompanied by the publication of a monograph on the artist’s work, including essays and interviews, that will be distributed to key influential international curators, critics, gallerists, museums, and collectors. A professional jury of three curators will select the artist whose presentation of work in Made in L.A. 2014 stands out as exceptional. The jurors are 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; and 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. The recipient of The Mohn Award will be announced in July.

Career Achievement Award│Jury award honoring brilliance and resilience

The Career Achievement Award is being offered for the first time for Made in L.A. 2014. The $25,000 award will be given to one artist in the exhibition who has demonstrated significant contributions to contemporary art throughout his or her career. The recipient will also be chosen by the professional jury of curators—Bankowsky, Beckwith, and DiQuinzio—and announced in July.

Public Recognition Award│Awarded by public vote

Visitors to the exhibition will choose the recipient of the inaugural $25,000 Public Recognition Award by voting for their favorite artist in Made in L.A. 2014. The public must register to vote on-site at the Hammer Museum (photo ID will be required). This process ensures that each voter has actually attended the exhibition and that each person only casts one vote. Once registered, a visitor may vote on-site or online. The Hammer is once again working with Trofee, a state-certified digital voting platform, used by organizations such as UCLA and The Emmy Awards. This platform has the highest levels of security to guarantee that the voting is secure and the results are authenticated. Voting will end in mid-August and the recipient will be announced soon after.

"L.A. is the creative capital of the world and we believe, deeply, that the best work today is being made right here,” notes Jarl Mohn. “Our goal is to recognize and honor artistic excellence from our emerging artist community. It is our hope to do this for the next 20 or more years."

Jarl Mohn

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.