Artprize

Have you heard about Artprize?

If you live here in Grand Rapids then you can't help but hear about it - but for those of you all over the country (and world!) I'm curious if you've heard about this interesting event that's in it's second year.

According to the Artprize website...

About ArtPrize®
Designed as a very different art competition, the goal is for the general public and artists to collide, exchange ideas and come away changed.

2010 in brief

Grand Rapids, MI USA
September 22 - October 10

Part arts festival, part social experiment--this international contest is decided solely by public vote.

$449,000 prize ($250,000 to 1st place)

Top 10 entries receive a prize

Artists can submit one entry

Property in downtown Grand Rapids can be a venue

Venues choose the artists they exhibit

Anyone attending the event can vote

Winner is determined by public vote

Artprize is fascintating to me on so many levels.  Fascinating because it's having such a huge economic impact on downtown Grand Rapids, fasicnating because it's exposing an entire community to art, and fascinating because social media is a core component to its very being.  It's pretty exciting.

Throughout the city there are orange venue signs everywhere you look - and hundreds of businesses and other locations are hosting artists and their pieces. 

(I asked Travis to strike an "Artpize-type pose" and this (above) is what he came up with!

We're in the second week of Artprize right now, and we were downtown last night looking at some of the Top Ten pieces.  They really run the gamut of visual and performance art pieces. 

(You can read about the Top Ten in detail, with all the artist info, here)

This piece may look like a painting from afar, but it is made entirely of mosaic stained glass...

This huge penny is made entirely of pennies... (check out the little boy's smile as he's posing for a photo!)

This is painted on transparent sheets of plastic and hung in a clear display box.  The photos don't do it justice.  Really, really interesting...

And this huge drawing was done entirely in pencil.  Absolutely amazing...

If you're in or close to Michigan, I encourage you to come check out Artprize now, or in the future.  Voting closed for this year's Top Ten on Wednesday night (in fact, by the time this posts, they will have already announced the winner) but the art will remain all over town until October 10. 

It will be interesting to see how the contest evolves as time goes by, and the project is certainly not without some flaws, but the most important thing in my eyes is the 100's of 1,000's of people that are getting out there and looking at art, having an opinion about it, and talking about it with their kids.  For that reason alone, maybe every city should have an Artprize...

http://www.artprize.org/