Perhaps the most popular event in West Michigan begins Wednesday. The art competition known as Art Prize runs through October 7th in Grand Rapids.
Now in its third year it’s an even larger event with more prize money for the winners. Brian Burch is Public Relations Director for Art Prize. He says the visitor just keep showing up.
"This year we'll have about 350, 000 visitors, but that's right from the start. Our first event in 2009 had about 200,000 people. so we just continue to grow," he said.
There are public awards and juried awards that total $560,000.
Hundreds of works of art are being installed across Grand Rapids this weekend.
The fourth annual ArtPrize exhibition officially gets underway on Wednesday.
ArtPrize public relations director Brian Burch admits there is some “anxiety” as the clock ticks down.
“With an event that is the size that it is…we’re expecting 350 thousand people…we have more than 1500 artists….at 161 venues,” says Burch, “Every year anxiety is high.”
The artists are competing for more than a half million dollars in prize money.
A report released today by the Anderson Economic Group say this year’s ArtPrize added $15.4 million to the Grand Rapids economy. That estimate is twice the economic impact measured in each of the first two years. 2011 was the third annual ArtPrize.
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) - The annual ArtPrize contest in Grand Rapids is getting a new $100,000 juried award and trimming how much money the top two publicly picked winners each get.
Organizers on Tuesday announced the creation of the ArtPrize Juried Grand Prize for the 2012 event, which is scheduled for Sept. 19 to Oct. 7. The new award makes the total prize money for the 2012 event $550,000, up from nearly $500,000 in 2011.
Next year, the artist winning the public voting will get $200,000 instead of the $250,000 that was awarded in 2011. The prize for second place will be $75,000, down from $100,000. Prizes for other juried awards will be $20,000.
Artist and venue registration for the fourth annual ArtPrize event will be announced later.
ArtPrize 2011 organizers held a press conference introducing the winner, Mia Tavonatti, last night, and Michigan Radio reporter Lindsey Smith was there.
For receiving the most votes, Tavonatti took home the top prize of $250,000 (Tavonatti placed second last year and won $100,000).
She lives in California now, but Tavonatti is originally from Iron Mountain in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
The piece towers in the same performance hall where the winner was announced last night. It’s 9 feet across, 13 feet tall; made up of tiny pieces of stained glass that make up a vision of Jesus Christ dying on the cross.
Tavonatti said "when you bring Christ to town. I just knew he had certain things in store for me. And I wasn't going to tell him how to do his job."
Tavonatti's win was bittersweet. Her mother died early yesterday morning after a bout with pneumonia.
ArtPrize winner Mia Tavonatti and her brother Darren Tavonatti pose for a picture in front of 'Crucifixion' Thursday night. Darren helped transport and install the piece in Grand Rapids.
Credit Lindsey Smith / Michigan Radio
Rick DeVos and ArtPrize winner Mia Tavonatti answer media questions after the announcement Thursday night.
(This article was altered to fix two grammatical errors.)
More than 1,500 artists from across the United States and 39 other countries competed in ArtPrize this year. More than 382,000 votes were cast by those who visited the event in Grand Rapids. Organizers estimate around 500,000 people came to the event, which runs through Sunday.
'Crucifixion' by Mia Tavonatti took home the top prize Thursday evening in Grand Rapids. She won $100,000 in ArtPrize last year with another 2-D stained glass mosaic.
The top prize of $250,000 went to Mia Tavonatti from Santa Ana, California (originally from Iron Mountain, Michigan) for her large-scale mosaic, Crucifixion. More than 382,000 votes were cast in ArtPrize 2011 and an estimated 500,000 visitors experienced the third annual competition.
"Rain" by Ann Arbor artist Lynda Cole 'is a kinetic sculpture using 7600 squares of silver leaf on polyester film. The squares are suspended within a 10 ft. cube of space and move with ambient air current.'
Here are the ArtPrize 2011 Top Ten in alphabetical order. Voting on the top ten will begin at 7:00 PM Thursday, September 29, and continue through 11:59 PM on Wednesday, October 5. The first place winner and the order of the Top Ten will be announced at 6:30 PM on Thursday, October 6 at DeVos Performance Hall. Tickets are available at the ArtPrize HUB at 41 Sheldon.
Voting for ArtPrize was supposed to end today. But the website has been down on and off throughout the day. So voting to narrow down the “top ten” continues until tomorrow at 4p.m.
More than 2,400 people have already started checking out ArtPrize. The art contest began in Grand Rapids Wednesday afternoon. 1,582 artists are competing to win a $250,000 top prize.
Even before ArtPrize opened, thousands of people had already preregistered to vote in the contest. Those who vote determine the winner.
The Total Blam Blams play at The Pyramid Scheme in Grand Rapids Saturday night. Jason and Nora Heystek front the band which is entering ArtPrize for the first time this year.
ArtPrize 2011 begins Wednesday afternoon in Grand Rapids. Sound and performing arts will play a bigger role in this year’s contest. Music, ballet, and other performances are, after all, art. But there haven’t been a lot of entries in the past.
The winner of the art competition gets $250,000 in prize money. Organizers claim it’s the world’s largest art prize.
This is the third annual ArtPrize. The third time I’ve seen giant sculptures, breath-taking murals, funny and eye-opening drawings take over a three-mile zone in downtown.
The third annual ArtPrize will kick off tomorrow in Grand Rapids. Michigan Radio's Lindsey Smith will have an update for us later today.
From the Associated Press:
ArtPrize begins Wednesday and runs through Oct. 9. Organizers say this year's show will host artists from 39 countries and 43 states displaying their work in 164 venues within three square miles of the city's downtown.
While the winners of most art competitions are decided by a few professionals, ArtPrize allows any adult to enter and any attendee to vote for the winners.
Founder Rick DeVos says the event is more about the process than the finished product - giving artists permission to embrace creativity and succeed or fail.
ArtPrize Executive Director Catherine Creamer shows off the ArtPrize totebag. The bag is one of at least 50 different pieces of ArtPrize swag available for purchase.
He told those gathered at a reception Friday he wants to make the downtown museum into center for all creative thinking, not just art.
“I really believe that as we look to the 21st century museums need to be community conveners and to be sites for bringing together people of different interests, different ideas.”
Friis-Hansen says the museum’s spaces and location in the city center will provide a good platform for that goal.
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