ARTPRIZE and the McKay Tower

ARTPRIZE IS BACK

Despite all of its many criticisms and failures, ArtPrize is great for Grand Rapids and good for Michigan.

As an urban development strategy, the event highlights the city and activates the streets and businesses, awarding Grand Rapids the feel of a bustling and vibrant city. The rhythm of the city changes.  Downtown Grand Rapids already has a healthy nightlife, but, although it is improving, the life in the day is limited. With ArtPrize, residents get a glimpse of how Grand Rapids would feel if everyone used and lived in their downtown. We get to see and use our city as if it was an urbanized city. We get to see people inhabiting every space in the city simultaneously.

For this reason, I look forward to each ArtPrize.

A brief moment each year, where everyone can understand and experience the importance of cities and what Grand Rapids should strive to be every day.

I criticize ArtPrize not to condemn it, but because I celebrate its potential and want it to live up to its capacity for changing the city and improving its image.

The event, however, has failed to live up to its lofty ambitions. The purpose of the prize was to elevate Grand Rapids in the national and international consciousness and to continue to elevate Grand Rapids as a serious arts center. Unfortunately, the dependence on the community and social media retards this development. ArtPrize feels like a glorified Arts Fair, Ann Arbor on steroids. Only the museums continue to perform a commendable job elevating the quality of the entries.

Ultimately I am less concerned with the level of the “art” or crafts but who we as a public vote as our champion. Either the citizenry must learn to take their roles in the event seriously, or the event will begin to lose its credibility. No one currently views the prize as a serious participant in the culture of Art, but it should be. The ArtPrize needs to be an event each year the nation and the world looks to and is invested. I fear this will never happen with tweets and text votes.

Currently the top 25 this year includes a few deserving entrants such as Kumi Yamashita’s “Origami” but also 2 dragon, a fish, and many other animal sculptures.

Visit ArtPrize Worst for an informative study on the many of the works.

This moleskine was given as a gift to first year entrants.

I wish I had one