FRIEZE LOS ANGELES IMPACT AWARE ANNOUNCEMENT
Victor ‘Marka27’ Quiñonez. Courtesy: the artist
Los Angeles, CA – Victor "Marka27" Quiñonez has been named the recipient of the 2025 Frieze Los Angeles Impact Prize, an award that each year recognizes an artist whose work has made a profound social impact. As part of the award, Quiñonez will present a solo project at Frieze Los Angeles 2025 and receive a $25,000 prize. The initiative, realized in collaboration with WME Impact, is a key element of the curated program at Frieze Los Angeles and is presented in partnership with The Center for Art and Advocacy.
Returning to the Santa Monica Airport from February 20–23, 2025, Frieze Los Angeles is supported by\ global lead partner Deutsche Bank, reflecting a shared commitment to artistic excellence.
A distinguished panel, including Pamela J. Joyner (collector, businesswoman, and philanthropist), and Sable Elyse Smith (interdisciplinary artist and writer), selected Quiñonez’s proposal for the award in collaboration with Taylor Renee Aldridge (curator and writer) who has joined as the 2025 Frieze Los Angeles Impact Prize curator.
Victor Quiñonez, also known as Marka27, is an acclaimed street artist celebrated for his vibrant, multidisciplinary work that combines contemporary art, graffiti, vinyl toys, fashion and design with art activism. His large-scale murals reflect his cultural heritage and pay homage to the legacy of the Mexican Masters—Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Siqueiros, collectively known as los tres grandes (the three greats). Inspired by the empowerment of marginalized communities and the fight for representation, Quiñonez’s art serves as a powerful platform for social change.
Marka27's work spans paintings, murals, mixed-media pieces and private commissions, all reflecting his signature "Neo Indigenous" style, which blends the energy of street and pop culture with Mexican and Indigenous aesthetics. A pioneer in graffiti and street art, Quiñonez has evolved into a sought-after muralist, product designer, gallery artist and toy designer. In 2025, he is set to unveil a traveling solo exhibition with Boston University's Stone Gallery curated by Kate Fowle, a large-scale public art installation for The Shed in New York City, and a public art installation with PRISM in Cleveland, Seeing Beyond Mass Incarceration. Quiñonez received the Center for Art and Advocacy’s Right of Return Fellowship in 2022.
Frieze Los Angeles 2025 will spotlight Quiñonez’s artistic vision, debuting his I.C.E SCREAM series - a collection of paintings and sculptural installations confronting the immigrant experience and speaking to the beauty, strength, and resilience of migrant workers, street vendors, and Indigenous cultures.
ABOUT THE FRIEZE LOS ANGELES IMPACT PRIZE
The Frieze Los Angeles Impact Prize was catalyzed by Mark Bradford’s Life Size, a work created for Frieze Los Angeles 2019. Depicting a police body camera isolated on a simple, monochrome background, Life Size drew attention to the inequitable aspects of the criminal justice system. Since the establishment of the Frieze Impact Prize in 2022, the initiative has recognized artists who contribute their talents towards issues of social justice, including Gary Tyler, Mary Baxter, Maria Gaspar, Narciso Martinez and Dread Scott.
Curator Biography
Taylor Renee Aldridge is a curator and writer from Detroit, Michigan. In addition to working with living artists, she is interested in exploring, and interrogating the intimacies that are engendered, and sometimes required in artmaking. With writer Jessica Lynne, in 2014 she co-founded ARTS.BLACK, an online journal of art criticism from Black perspectives. Taylor has edited exhibition catalogs; Enunciated Life (CAAM, 2021) and Mario Moore | Enshrined: Presence + Preservation (Charles H. Wright Museum, 2021), and is the editor of All These\ Liberations: Women Artists in the Eileen Harris Norton Collection (Yale University Press, 2024). In Fall 2024, she assumed the role of Executive Director at Modern Ancient Brown Foundation, to offer resources to scholars and artists of color. She is the former Visual Arts Curator and Program Manager at the California African American Museum (CAAM), and has organized critically acclaimed exhibitions with CAAM, Detroit Institute of Arts, and Cranbrook Art Museum. Recent exhibitions include Simone Leigh (2024, CAAM & LACMA) Darol Olu Kae: Keeping Time (2023, CAAM); Chloë Bass | #sky #nofilter: Hindsight for A Future America (2023, CAAM); Mario Moore | Enshrined: Presence and Preservation (2022, CAAM; 2021 Charles H. Wright Museum); Troy Montez-Michie: Rock of Eye (2022, CAAM); Matthew Thomas: Enlightenment (2022, CAAM); LaToya Ruby Frazier: The Last Cruze (2021, CAAM); and Enunciated Life (2021, CAAM).
Her writing has appeared in Artforum , The Art Newspaper , Art21 , ARTNews , Canadian Art , Contemporary & , Detroit Metro Times , the defunct SFMOMA’s Open Space , and numerous catalogs. She is the recipient of the 2016 Creative Capital | Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant for Short Form Writing and the 2019 Rabkin Foundation Award for Art Journalism. She holds an MLA from Harvard University with a concentration in Museum Studies and a BA from Howard University with a concentration in Art History.
Juror Biographies
Taylor Renee Aldridge has nearly 30 years of experience in the investment industry. She is the Founder of Avid Partners, LLC where her expertise has been the alternative investment arena. Currently, Ms. Joyner is focused on her philanthropic interests in the arts and education.
Ms. Joyner is a Trustee of The Art Institute of Chicago, the J. Paul Getty Trust and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. In 2020, she joined the board of trustees of the Museum of Modern Art in New York and in 2021 she became the co- chair of the Painting and Sculpture Committee. In 2020, with several others, she also founded the Black Trustee Alliance for Art Museums.
Previously, Ms. Joyner’s philanthropic involvements have included serving as: a member of President Obama’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities; a Trustee of Dartmouth College; a Trustee of the New York City Ballet; a Trustee and Co-Chair of the San Francisco Ballet Association; as well as other arts and educational organizations.
Sable Elyse Smith is an interdisciplinary artist and writer based in New York. Her creative practice spans the visual, literary, moving image and performing arts. Language is an ARCHITECTURE. She has built a practice tracing the threads of violence and power embedded within systems of belief, infrastructure, language, intimacy, the quotidian, and beyond. She was recently included on the 2024 TIME100 Next— The magazine's annual list of 100 individuals who are shaping the future of their fields and defining the next generation of leadership. Her work has been featured at the Museum of Modern Art, MoMA Ps1, New Museum, The Studio Museum in Harlem, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Institute of Contemporary Art Boston and numerous others. In 2022 she was a participant in both the Whitney Biennial, and the 59th Venice Biennale. Most recently her first opera, If you unfolded us premiered at MoMA (July 2024). Smith has received awards from Joan Mitchell Foundation, Creative Capital, Suzanne Deal Booth / Flag Art Foundation Prize, Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, Fine Arts Work Center, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and Art Matters among others.
Opening Times:
• Thursday, February 20: (invitation only)
• Friday, February 21: 11am – 7pm (invitation only 11am – 1pm, open to the public from 1pm)
• Saturday, February 22: 11am – 7pm
• Sunday, February 23: 11am – 6pm
Accessibility
The fair is fully accessible for individuals with reduced mobility. Companion or carer tickets are available
free of charge: after booking your ticket, please get in touch at frieze.seetickets.com/customerservice to
arrange. Wheelchairs and hearing loops are available at the coat check, and ADA parking slots may be
accessed via Donald Douglas Loop. The accessibility map for Frieze Los Angeles 2024, with further
information for route planning, will be made available soon.
Frieze is a leading global contemporary art organization, renowned for its art fairs, publications and
digital presence. Founded in 1991 with the launch of frieze magazine, the brand has grown to encompass
seven of the most significant art fairs worldwide in cities including Chicago, London, Los Angeles, New
York and Seoul. These events attract leading artists, galleries and collectors, fostering innovative
dialogues and practices within the art community. frieze magazine continues to set the benchmark for
insightful art criticism and commentary, while frieze.com serves as a vital online resource. Committed to
expanding the reach and understanding of contemporary art, Frieze also hosts year-round curated
programs and associated initiatives, such as No.9 Cork Street and Frieze 91, that enrich the cultural
landscape. With a dedicated team passionate about the arts, Frieze remains at the forefront of artistic
exploration and cultural discourse, connecting diverse audiences with groundbreaking artists and their
work. Frieze is part of the IMG network. For more information, visit frieze.com.
IMG is a global sports, events and representation company. It is a leader in rights management, multi- channel content production and distribution, consultancy and fan engagement; owns, produces and commercially represents hundreds of live events and experiences; and manages licensing programs for the world’s best- known brands and trademarks. IMG is a subsidiary of Endeavor, a global sports and entertainment company.
2025 marks the 22nd year of Deutsche Bank as Global Lead Partner of Frieze. As part of its social commitment to Art & Culture, Deutsche Bank has supported and collected the work of cutting-edge international artists for more than 40 years. A global leader in corporate art programs, the bank also runs an Artist of the Year program, and its own cultural center in Berlin, the PalaisPopulaire. Further Frieze collaborations include the Deutsche Bank Frieze Los Angeles Film Award, which is in its sixth year, the Frieze x Deutsche Bank Emerging Curators Fellowship in the United Kingdom, The Art of Conversation global series, and digital platform Art:LIVE. Db.com/art. Instagram: @deutschebankart
The Center for Art and Advocacy believes there is an abundance of uncultivated talent and exceptional creativity among individuals who share the lived experience of incarceration. At a time when our country leads the world in the criminalization of its most vulnerable populations, often made up of people with marginalized identities, we find that justice-impacted artists within the U.S. are especially at risk of being under-funded, under-mentored, under-resourced, and under-connected within the traditional institutions and arts communities. This is why The Center aims to improve these outcomes for our most vulnerable creatives by providing financial and community support via our catalytic flagship, the Right of Return Fellowship, mentoring and professional development through our capacity-building Academy and Arts Incubator program, and the opportunity for industry-wide recognition and dedicated time to develop their projects through our forthcoming premiere Residency and Retreat in rural Pennsylvania.
The organization’s distinctive perspective makes this community especially equipped to advance change throughout the United States through the reframing of our collective criminal legal narrative and advocacy for racial justice and equity, using the vehicle of art to build, organize, and support local and national movements.
FURTHER INFORMATION
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