We spent a couple of days last week checking out the ArtPrize competition in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
ArtPrize, now in its second year, bills itself as "part arts festival, part social experiment". I'd characterize it as a uniquely interactive event designed to engage viewers and artists by creating a community centered around interaction between the two groups.
The eye-popping $250,000 prize awarded to the first place piece, and nearly $500,000 in total prizes, draws attention to the competition, but the excitement and buzz generated over the 19-day event seems priceless to me.
We arrived in Grand Rapids just as public voting to determine the final winners wound down, but excitement throughout the city seemed high as everyone awaited the announcement of the eventual winner. But, with 1,713 artists displaying their work in 192 venues throughout the city and visitors casting 465,538 votes for their favorite pieces during the 2010 ArtPrize, it seems to me to be a win-win situation all the way around.
This was our first ArtPrize visit, and we found that two days wasn't nearly enough to see even a fraction of the pieces on display throughout the city. Our best strategy seemed to be to ride the city bus downtown each morning, choose a couple of major exhibition centers to visit, hop on the ArtPrize shuttle, and spend some time in each area visiting a major exhibition center and walking out to some of the smaller venues surrounding them. That meant we didn't see all of the winners, but it allowed us to see a lot of great pieces and to get a sense of the buzz surrounding the event throughout the city.
Accordingly, I zoomed in to present a few small pieces of our ArtPrize experience to give you a quick impression of the event that hopefully whets your appetite for next October's ArtPrize.
Thanks to Debbie Dubrow of Delicious Baby for creating and coordinating Photo Friday to link travel photos and blog posts across the Web.
© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved
That shadow photo is awesome! As are all the rest, but that's my favorite!
Posted by: Camels & Chocolate | October 15, 2010 at 08:49 AM
Very cool photos! Looks like a great competition.
Posted by: Anna | October 15, 2010 at 09:03 AM
love this - closeup, they are even more incredible than seeing them from a distance! my parents went to this a few weeks ago, and loved it. it is not so accessible for me, though, so i am GRATEFUL for a glimpse! thanks, d!
Posted by: jessiev | October 15, 2010 at 10:33 AM
C&C-I loved the shadow photo, too :) I like experimenting with indirect images (shadows, reflections), and found quite a few pieces that lent themselves to that.
Anna-It was a pretty amazing competition--over 1,700 artists entered work, and it was spread over a fairly large area. I thought Grand Rapids did a nice job with it, and it was a joy to see a downtown area so filled with people and positive buzz.
Jessie-You can check out each of the pieces with the links I included with the pictures so you can see what the entire work looks like in each case. I went with the close-up theme just for the reason you mentioned. I really thought it showed some of the cool details--especially in the last two photos where the artists used duct tape and crayons respectively!
Posted by: Dominique King | October 15, 2010 at 11:03 AM
I really want to get up to Grand Rapids for this one year. Looks amazing. Beautiful photos!
Posted by: Arrows Sent Forth | October 15, 2010 at 12:06 PM
They're all very interesting, but I also have to vote for the shadow. The silhouettes walking along the street definitely caught my eye.
Posted by: gypsyscarlett | October 17, 2010 at 12:04 AM
Nicole-ArtPrize is a pretty amazing event. You do need to be prepared to walk a bit, and resigned to the fact that you just can't see it all in a couple of days. Still well worth going, and folks in Grand Rapids seem pretty jazzed about it.
Gypsy-I liked the shadows photo better than any picture I took of the actual artwork! I liked the dynamic in the photo.
Posted by: Dominique King | October 17, 2010 at 05:24 PM