Work by Edgar Ramirez Acquired by The City of Santa Monica Art Bank Collection at Frieze Los Angeles 2023

The City of Santa Monica’s Art Bank collection has selected a work by Edgar Ramirez titled Bajío (2023) for acquisition.

Ramirez is showing with Chris Sharp Gallery in the fair’s Focus section for young galleries.

The acquisition is the result of a partnership between Frieze and the City of Santa Monica that aims to grow the City’s Art Bank collection. The work was chosen by a selection committee comprised of: Christine Messineo (Director of Americas, Frieze), Anne Ellegood (Executive Director of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles), and Deepa Subramanian (Santa Monica Arts Commissioner).

Criteria for the acquisition include a requirement that the work be made by an artist based in Southern California, and that it illuminates the diverse lived experiences of artists from the region.

Santa Monica’s Art Bank collection was instituted in 1984 to bring art into Santa Monica’s public spaces and is funded through the City of Santa Monica’s Percent for Art Program. The Art Bank contains over 200 works—including sculpture, painting, photography, and works on paper—by such notable artists as Laura Aguilar, Lita Albuquerque, Charles Gaines, Kerry James Marshall, Linda Vallejo, and other artists active in Southern California. The collection also incorporates gifts of artwork received by the City over the course of the last century, including 18th and 19th-century landscape and portrait paintings and preparatory drawings and maquettes by artists commissioned to make public art in Santa Monica. The acquisition of artworks to the City’s collection has helped support many artists of the Southern California region.

Learn more about Ramirez's inspirations, processes and relationship to his Los Angeles locale with our video.

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