By Lookout Staff

February 28, 2025 -- An artwork composed of shard glass and mirrors was acquired by the City for its municipal Art Bank collection during the Frieze Los Angeles art fair last week.

Edgar Arceneaux’s “Skinning the Mirror (Winter 9), 2025,” was selected from the Focus section of the fair, which features galleries founded within the last 12 years.

The section was curated for the second time by Essence Harden, who will also curate the Hammer Museum’s acclaimed “Made in LA” exhibit in the fall, City officials said.

The collaboration between Frieze, independent curators and the Santa Monica Arts Commission "further builds the importance of working together to support new artistic voices,” said Arts Commissioner Michael J. Mascucci.

Arceneaux is known for creating art that "explores connections between historical events and present-day truths" using drawing, sculpture, installation, performance and multi-media events, according to the artist's website.

His latest series of paintings uses "a strenuous process of chemically stripping the mirrors from their backing and transferring them to canvas," according to the site.

In this way, Arceneaux "creates new complex gestural images that are reflective, yet fragmented, broken and layered, with distressed colors of silver, black, green, and rust."

Arceneaux played a key role in creating the Watts House Project, a redevelopment initiative to remodel a series of houses around the Watts Towers, and served as the project's director from 1999 to 2012.

His work has been featured in the Whitney Biennial (2008), Whitney Museum of American Art; the Studio Museum in Harlem; Performa 15 in New York and the MIT List Visual Arts Center, among other venues.

The 2025 Art Bank selection jury was composed of Masucci, Frieze Director of Americas Christine Messineo and Del Vaz Projects Founding Director & Chief Curator Jay Ezra Nayssan.

The City's partnership with Frieze began in 2023 when the art fair moved to Santa Monica Airport. The City's first acquisition from Frieze was “Bajio,” by Wilmington-based artist Edgar Ramirez, now installed in City Hall Council Chambers.

The City then acquired “In Memoriam of an Ashanti Warrior,” by Frieze Impact Prize winner Gary Tyler during Frieze 2024. Tyler's artwork is on view in City Hall ("City Acquires Artwork by Wrongfully Convicted Artist," March 8, 2024).

View the full city of Santa Monica Art Bank collection at publicartarchive.org/search/collections/Santa-Monica-Art-Bank