The artist Gary Tyler has gained this yr’s Frieze Los Angeles Influence Prize. The award contains $25,000 and a solo presentation at Frieze Los Angeles (29 February-3 March), the place Tyler will present new textile works increasing on his 2023 sequence We’re the Keen.
Tyler’s observe largely attracts on his private expertise as a wrongfully incarcerated Black man. In 1974, when he was solely an adolescent, Tyler was convicted of murdering a white boy and placed on loss of life row on the notorious Louisiana State Penitentiary. He was launched in 2016, after virtually 42 years behind bars (eight of them in solitary confinement). Whereas in jail, he grew to become an skilled at quilting—a talent he now makes use of to painting moments from his personal life and the lives of different incarcerated people. Tyler lives and works in Los Angeles.
Gary Tyler’s Remembrance (2023) Photograph: Tim Johnson, courtesy the artist and Library Avenue Collective
The annual Influence Prize, based in 2022, is awarded to artists whose work focuses on social-justice points and makes “a major impression on society”, in response to Frieze. Earlier winners embrace Mary Baxter, Maria Gaspar, Narciso Martinez and Dread Scott.
For the award’s 2024 version, Frieze collaborated with the Middle for Artwork and Advocacy’s Proper of Return Fellowship, which works with beforehand incarcerated artists whose practices “mirror the humanity of criminalised and incarcerated folks and construct public will for bold and visionary change”. Present fellows and alumni had been invited to use to the prize; Tyler’s work was chosen by a jury that included the artist Gary Simmons.
“Gary Tyler has a profound observe tackling therapeutic, injustice and racial fairness,” Jesse Krimes, an artist and the founder and govt director of the Middle for Artwork and Advocacy, mentioned in an announcement. “His masterful quilting method might be on full show on the truthful, showcasing new textile work that I am certain will encourage all.”
