Why did we countdown the sixty days leading up to tomorrow’s opening of Made In L.A.? Because we all get to vote on a winner for the $100K Mohn Award! And, we all need to make educated votes. Having followed and researched and looked at all of these artists and their work for quite some time, we want to share our prediction for the top five artists before we see their work, the people we think are going to be the ones who will excel or are already favorites by the institution. And, after seeing the show this weekend, we’ll share a revised top five prediction having seen everything in person.

Kathryn Andrews
This is an obvious choice. Kathryn’s work has a modernity and a contemporariness that a lot of the artists don’t hit. She hits the modernity that Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons hits which is very accessible and nice and sweet and edgy and easy to consume. We have her in our top five because we can bet she’ll make it in due to her being one of their darlings, as she is both the covergirl for the catalogue and got a sizable amount of screen time in the trailer. Her inclusion in our top five is certainly more of a political choice for us.

Zackary Drucker
We have loved Zackary for what seems like forever. She is one of the sweetest and funniest and most creative people we’ve met in Los Angeles. Obviously, she is one of our darlings and we are rooting for her because she’s so great. Her piece–She Gone Rogue–sounds fantastic and it represents something she has that very few other artists in the show do not have: star power. She has this quality about her that is so movie star and so covergirl: we would not be surprised if she is swept into Hollywood. And, her piece reflects that as it is a very cinematic, filmic piece made with Rhys Ernst, a filmmaker by trade. We’re super intrigued to see it in person and, apparently, so is the Hammer: she is one of the few artists who has an event, perhaps pointing that she is already under their wing as well.

Dan Finsel
This artist, guys. Honestly, we’re only including him because he seems to very much be a darling of the show: his photo was used in the LA Times piece that announced the prize, he was the first to get a film interview, and is the first to appear in the trailer. Like Zackary, he has a star quality–but his is one of those disguises to hide or enhance his personality. He’s like the Michael Cera of Made In L.A.

Nicole Miller
We absolutely love, love, love Miller’s work. She’s so fresh and her work is very contemporary: she represents so much in the show. When doing our research on her for the show, we had the chance to watch videos of her work after accidentally stumbling upon her private Vimeo page of work. Boy, are they good! She is one of the only artists we discovered over the course of the sixty who we were absolutely thrilled to share. Her inclusion in our top five is really dependent on what she brings to the show. We’re sure it will be fantastic; however, there are some tough competitors.

Ry Rocklen
Ry is the only artist out of the sixty who “gets” 2012. He is the only artist who has a great, working website that is kind of like an art piece in and of itself. He seems to have a grasp of what he is trying to say and articulates it from his visual art to his music to every way he expresses himself. His work is very easy to digest and endlessly cool and Los Angeles. Even more so than Nicole Miller, we found his work and were screaming about how great it was. Ry was the only artist that I instant messaged to friends to say, “Look at how radical this guy is.”

That’s our top five guesses before we’ve seen any of their work, guys. We wish we could have included Fiona Connor, Channa Horwitz, Sarah Cain, or Animal Charm but we could only choose five!

Now, of course, this top five is completely theoretical since we–the public–don’t even get to vote for a top five: we get to vote for the top pick. The top five will be picked by a “professional jury” in the art world that includes curator/writer Anthony Huberman, MOMA’s Doryun Chong, High Line Art Program’s Cecilia Alemani, and LACMA’s Rita Gonzalez. We’re not sure what their criteria will be but we will certainly be at the Hammer Bash at the end of the month for the announcement of the top five.

Do you guys have any bets on your top five before you see the show? Who are you most excited to see? Share them in the comments!