Hammer Museum Launches New $100K Art Prize

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Some rather interesting art world news: Thanks to Jarl Mohn — a former MTV and VH1 exec who helped found E!, and a passionate art collector — LA’s Hammer Museum will be awarding one of the 60 “emerging and under-recognized” artists in its first-ever biennial, Made in LA, with a $100,000 cash prize. That’s more than you get if you win the Turner! What’s more, museumgoers will be the ones who determine who wins out of a group of five finalists selected by a jury of art experts. So it’s more like American Idol than Work of Art.

Mohn has committed to funding at least five installments of the prize, and he also plans to publish a limited-edition monograph for each of the winning artists that he’ll send out, along with the Hammer biennial catalog, to “500 of the most influential people in emerging art.” This all sounds like a good thing to us — and a surefire way to draw more attention to the LA art scene. What do you make of it? [via LAT]