The artist Gary Tyler has won this year’s Frieze Los Angeles Impact Prize. The award includes $25,000 and a solo presentation at Frieze Los Angeles (29 February-3 March), where Tyler will show new textile works expanding on his 2023 series We are the Willing.
Tyler’s practice largely draws on his personal experience as a wrongfully incarcerated Black man. In 1974, when he was only a teenager, Tyler was convicted of murdering a white boy and put on death row at the infamous Louisiana State Penitentiary. He was released in 2016, after almost 42 years behind bars (eight of them in solitary confinement). While in prison, he became an expert at quilting—a skill he now uses to portray moments from his own life and the lives of other incarcerated individuals. Tyler lives and works in Los Angeles.
Gary Tyler's Remembrance (2023) Photo: Tim Johnson, courtesy the artist and Library Street Collective
The annual Impact Prize, founded in 2022, is awarded to artists whose work focuses on social-justice issues and makes “a significant impact on society”, according to Frieze. Previous winners include Mary Baxter, Maria Gaspar, Narciso Martinez and Dread Scott.
For the award’s 2024 edition, Frieze collaborated with the Center for Art and Advocacy’s Right of Return Fellowship, which works with previously incarcerated artists whose practices “reflect the humanity of criminalised and incarcerated people and build public will for ambitious and visionary change”. Current fellows and alumni were invited to apply to the prize; Tyler’s work was chosen by a jury that included the artist Gary Simmons.
“Gary Tyler has a profound practice tackling healing, injustice and racial equity,” Jesse Krimes, an artist and the founder and executive director of the Center for Art and Advocacy, said in a statement. “His masterful quilting technique will be on full display at the fair, showcasing new textile work that I'm sure will inspire all.”