ArtPrize Blog

ArtPrize Announces 2012 Artist/Venue Registration Schedule

ArtPrize today announced its registration timeline for our 2012 event, which will run from Sept. 19 through Oct. 7.

The ArtPrize platform creates a system that values creativity, experimentation and above all, collaboration. Artists are encouraged to build a relationship and partner with a venue as early as possible to create a memorable and successful installation. Registration dates include:

Venue Registration
Open: Monday, March 12 (Noon EDT)
Close: Thursday April 12 (5:00 p.m. EDT)

Artist Registration/Connections Open
Monday, April 23 (Noon EDT)

Artist Registration Close
Thursday, May 24 (5:00 p.m. EDT)

Connections Period Close
Thursday, June 14 (5:00 p.m. EDT)

There are few differences between the 2011 and 2012 registration process, key changes include simultaneous Artist Registration and Connections Period, allowing artists to immediately coordinate with a venue upon registration. Connections will remain open beyond Artist Registration until June 14.

Any art proposed for installation in the Grand River, which runs through the center of the ArtPrize district, must be submitted to the city of Grand Rapids and the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) according to the following schedule:

Pre-application filed with the City of Grand Rapids
Monday, March 5

Application filed with the DEQ
Friday, March 16

The DNRE will process the application using the following steps:

Public notice period begins: Friday, March 30
Public notice period ends: Friday, April 20
Public hearing, if requested: Friday, May 18
Required time for comments: Tuesday, May 29

Permit Decision
Thursday, June 7

This process allows the State of Michigan and City of Grand Rapids to review proposed work and ensure that the installation meets specific criteria relevant to the environmental, structural and navigability impact on the river.

In ArtPrize 2011, Mia Tavonatti, of Orange Co. Calif., captured the top prize of $250,000 for her work, Crucifixion. Chris LaPorte of Grand Rapids, Mich. won the top prize in 2010 with Cavalry, American Officers, 1921, and Ran Ortner of Brooklyn, N.Y. won in 2009 for his work Open Water No. 24.

ArtPrize Announces $100,000 Juried Grand Prize

ArtPrize, the radically open international art competition and social experiment in Grand Rapids, Mich., is pleased to announce a new award: the ArtPrize Juried Grand Prize.

The $100,000 award will be added to a revised list of public and juried prizes that will be distributed at the end of the 19-day event.

ArtPrize 2012 will take place Sept. 19 – Oct. 7, 2012.

With its public vote and juried awards, ArtPrize explores the tension between professional and populist in an epic conversation. In 2011, nearly 400,000 people visited Grand Rapids to engage with the work and ideas of nearly 1,600 artists. The new award changes the dynamic of the competition, and increases the total awards the event distributes to $550,000, making it the largest total prize purse for art in the world.

In addition to the Juried Grand Prize, ArtPrize will also increase its other juried awards to $20,000 each. The organization selected five categories to recognize:

• Two-Dimensional
• Three-Dimensional
• Time and Performance
• Urban Space
• Venue

The increased commitment to juried awards will change the dynamic of the event and sets up a purposeful dialog between the opinions of arts professionals and the public, focusing on the artists’ work. Jurors for all of the professional awards will be announced in the spring, prior to artist registration.

“For the past three years, ArtPrize has set itself apart by empowering the public and giving them a critical voice, but the success of the event is based on the exchange of artists’ ideas,” said DeVos. “We want ArtPrize to be accessible for everyone, so we hope the new awards will help artists understand our goals and encourage them bring new ideas to the event.”

The changes in Juried Prizes will result in a revision of the ArtPrize Public Vote Awards:
Public Vote Award Revisions

• Top Prize 2011: $250,000 2012: $200,000
• 2nd 2011: $100,000 2012: $75,000
• 3rd 2011: $50,000 2012: $50,000
• 4th-10th 2011: $7,000 2012: $5,000

The prize total for the public awards in 2012 will be $350,000, vastly outweighing the juried awards at $200,000, and keeping the organization’s focus on the community.

“The engagement of the community continues to be at the forefront of ArtPrize’s success,” added Catherine Creamer, executive director of ArtPrize. “Nearly 400,000 people participated in ArtPrize in 2011, not because we told them art mattered, but because we create a system where THEY matter to art.”

ArtPrize 2011 had more than 38,000 registered voters who submitted 383,000 total votes. With the increase of smartphones, mobile voting via the ArtPrize iPhone and new Android apps increased 62 percent.

ArtPrize 2011 began Sept. 21 with 1,582 artists from 39 countries and 43 U.S. states installing their work at 164 venues in a three-square-mile district in Grand Rapids, Mich.

Artist and venue registration for ArtPrize 2012 will be announced after the beginning of the year. For more information, visit www.artprize.org.

Eyes on the Prize 2011: Top Picks

Nicole J. Caruth is a freelance writer and curator living in New York. She is a frequent contributor to the Art21 blog. ArtPrize hired Nicole to chronicle the 2009, 2010, and this year’s events. Nicole’s thoughts and opinions are her own and in no way represent an endorsement or objection from ArtPrize toward an individual artist or venue.

In the first week of ArtPrize, nearly 28,000 people registered to vote. Impressive? Absolutely. People are excited about looking at art and have chosen Grand Rapids as their destination. Now, was the top ten what some of us had hoped for? Not so much. But perhaps it’s time to turn the focus from the results to the system that allows the general public to vote in the first place.

For myself, the outcome this year begets questions about how the voting system might be flawed and, if so, how the organization can improve it. And from my observations of the public over the past two weeks, I’ve often wondered if people are casting votes with prudence or if they are they shooting from the hip, so to speak, treating it like a game that has no real life consequence? It seems that a fundamental problem of the ArtPrize voting system is that it’s too easy. Voters have almost as many things to look at as they have opportunities to give thumbs up or down.

Consider the following ideas (some of which are not my own) that might change how people vote and the results we’re seeing: What if you could cast no more than twenty-five votes in the first week and ten votes the second week? What if you could only cast five votes per neighborhood? Or what if you were limited to ten votes across the entire competition? What if voting at ArtPrize worked more like building a personal collection of art you really loved as opposed to clicking on things you liked?

Personally, I prefer the latter idea because in trying to do this for myself, I was challenged to come up with ten entries I felt strongly enough about to post here. What follows are my top nine picks, listed in no particular order:

Mimi Kato, "One Ordinary Day of an Ordinary Town" (Scene 1: Golden Sky, golden start) 2010. Archival Pigment Print, 7' x 32'. Venue: Kendall College of Art & Design.

Amusement abounds in Mimi Kato’s cartoonish computer-generated landscape One Ordinary Day of an Ordinary Town, wherein Kato is everyone and everyone is her. Drawing on Japanese historical arts (including theatre) and her childhood memories, Kato appears in drastically different ages groups, roles, and positions. From showering in a home to brawling on the street to exercising with a group of clones, the artist creates the pulse of this city. Hands down my number one pick this year, I was delighted when Kato received this year’s juried award for two-dimensional work.

Christopher Yockey, "Saying I Do," 2011. Steel, 5' x 8' 1'. Venue: Grand Rapids Art Museum.

Christopher Yockey’s wall sculpture Saying I Do is easy to miss at the Grand Rapids Museum of Art, where it hangs nearish the room of paper tree trunks. In Yockey’s hands, steel takes on the appearance of paper cutouts and spray paint. I’d love to see an entire room or storefront devoted to his whimsical and graffiti-esque forms.

Ryan Spencer Reed, "Sudan: The Cost of Silence," 2009. Photographic installation, 9' x 60' x 1'. Venue: DeVos Place.

Fortunately, Ryan Spencer Reed returned to ArtPrize after showing his Detroit series at Devos Place in 2010. His keen photojournalistic eye coupled with his experience of living in Sudanese refugee camps come together in Sudan: The Cost of Silence. Reed pictures of the war torn region serve to raise awareness of human suffering without leaning to extremes. While heart-wrenching they art not horrid and though beautiful they are not romantic.

The Screwed Arts Collective (Christopher Burch, Daniel Burnett, Stan Chisholm, Chris Harris, Daniel Jefferson, Kris Mosby, Jason Spencer, Justin Tolentino and Bryan Walsh), "Screwed Rapids (Wall Drawing #3)," 2011. Photo: Vince Dudzinski. Venue: UICA.

In general, painters exhibited stronger works in ArtPrize 2011 than I recall there being in previous years. But none grabbed me the same way as Screwed Rapids (Wall Drawing #3), created in situ by The Screwed Arts Collective. While I wished there had been more room to stand back from this vibrant mural and take everything in at once, it is a beautiful installation from any angel. This energetic and colorful mix of abstract and figurative imagery offered me something new every time I passed by.

Kevin Kammeraad, The Kevin Kammeraad and Friends Puppet Theatre, 2011. Live performance. Venue: Children's Museum, outdoors.

Puppeteer-cum-endurance-performer Kevin Kammeraad could be found day after day on the grass outside the Children’s Museum kicking, wiggling, shaking, and singing with an excited crowd of children and parents. His energy was infectious. Playful and educational, I loved what The Kevin Kammeraad and Friends Puppet Theatre added to daily life in the neighborhood of Hillside.

Fraternal Codependence by Nicholas Napoletano exemplified for me the difference between seeing paintings in the virtual versus the physical world. Online, where the artist first came to my attention, his Caravaggian style looked derivative and dreary, whereas in person I found myself in awe of his technical mastery and unexpected stylistic approach to environmental issues, specifically the global increase of natural disasters.

Karisa Wilson. Photo: Kristin Anne Johnson. Venue: St. Cecilia Music Center.

In the basement of St. Cecilia Music Center, a series of listening stations played this year’s music entries. It was here that I discovered Michgan-born recording artist Karisa Wilson. Her indie folk song “Stronger” came to my mind several times during ArtPrize as being something I’d like to hear again and again. Wilson is the latest edition to my iTunes library.

Jennifer Cronin, "Untitled no. 1 (from the peculiar manifestation of paint in my life)," 2010. Oil on canvas, 3' x 6' x 1'. Venue: Grand Rapids Public Museum.

Standing in front of Jennifer Cronin’s Untitled no.1 was like watching a suspense thriller. You, the viewer, know what is happening while the character is unaware and vulnerable to the threat of this black cloud floating over her body. Cronin took a risk here. The thick strokes of paint look carelessly applied against the detailed setting; it looks as if the artist planned to destroy her work and then changed her mind. But what this suggests is that Cronin is in some way haunted by her own painting practice.

Ji Lee, "Pieces of Mind," 2011. Photo: Jay Freeman. Venue: UICA.

Produced by Ji Lee, Pieces of Mind was not about his little Buddhas as much as it was about his larger goal of engaging the people and architecture of Grand Rapids. One reason Lee’s project was a favorite of mine is because it was so well matched to ArtPrize where people are already encouraged to go out and hunt for art, converse about their findings, and hopefully gain new perspectives.

What was in your top ten? I encourage you to share in the comment box below.

ArtPrize 2011 Celebrated the Diversity of Ideas and Opinions

ArtPrize celebrates the diversity of ideas, voices and the work of hundreds of artists. Now, as we conclude our third year, few things have changed toward that mission. During the past 19 days, an estimated 500,000 people came to Grand Rapids, Mich., not entirely known as an ‘art mecca’ (we’re working on it) and participated in an epic dialog about contemporary art.

The level of engagement was record-setting. At a time when many are drawn to professional or college sports, or other events, hundreds of thousands of people of all ages and from all backgrounds sought out their favorite works and voted. Jurors, experts in their field, came from across the country, to select the works they felt best represented a particular category. Together we explored the tension between public and professional in an open dialog.

In all, 18 winners were awarded nearly $500,000, with the top prize of $250,000 going to Mia Tavonatti of Santa Ana, Calif., for her mosaic, Crucifixion.

The conversation was epically epic. Made possible by the voters, our partners, the artists and the venues. Thank you for your commitment. Together we are creating a place where engaging with art and engaging with each other is valued. Because of you, no other event is like this in the world.

Together, let’s congratulate all of our 1,582 artist participants, including our winners:

Popular Vote

• Mia Tavonatti, Santa Ana, Calif. Crucifixion
• Tracy Van Duinen, Chicago, Ill., Metaphorest
• Lynda Cole, Ann Arbor, Mich. Rain
• Laura Alexander, Columbus, Ohio, The Tempest II
• Paul Baliker, Palm Coast, Fla., Ocean Exodus
• Ritch Branstrom, Rapid River, Mich., “Rusty” A sense of direction/self portrait
• Sunti Pichetchaiyakul, Big Fork, Mont., President Gerald Ford Visits ArtPrize
• Robert Shangle, Sparta, Mich., Under Construction
• Bill Secunda, Butler, Pa., Mantis Dreaming
• Llew (Doc) Tilma, Wayland, Mich., Grizzlies on the Ford

Juried Awards

• Two-Dimensional — Mimi Kato, St. Louis, Mo., One Ordinary Day of an Ordinary Town
• Three-Dimensional — Michelle Brody, New York, N.Y., Nature Preserve
• International — Shinji Turner-Yamamoto, Cincinnati, Ohio, DISAPPEARANCES – an eternal journey
• Time-Based — Caroline Young, Chicago, Ill., Remember:Replay:Repeat
• Urban Space — Catie Newell, Detroit, Mich., Salvaged Landscape
• Sustainability — Laura Milkins, Tucson, Ariz., Walking Home: stories from the desert to the Great Lakes
• Ox-Bow Residency — Evertt Beidler, Portland, Ore., Progressive Movement(s)
• Venue — SiTE:LAB, Grand Rapids, Mich.

Eyes on the Prize 2011: Ten Minutes with Glenn Harper, 3D Award Juror

Nicole J. Caruth is a freelance writer and curator living in New York. She is a frequent contributor to the Art21 blog. ArtPrize hired Nicole to chronicle the 2009, 2010, and this year’s events. Nicole’s thoughts and opinions are her own and in no way represent an endorsement or objection from ArtPrize toward an individual artist or venue.

Glenn Harper is editor of Sculpture magazine, and formerly editor of Art Papers. He visited ArtPrize earlier this week to present in the Speaker Series, as well as to determine the winner of the award for 3D, a category that includes nearly 600 entries. In the following interview, I ask Harper a few questions about sculpture, technology, and ArtPrize in general.

Nicole J. Caruth: I was just reading your article Is Sculpture Dead? There’s a question that you asked in piece that said, to paraphrase, if sculpture is dead and everything is permitted, does anything count? I feel like that gets at one of the questions here, which is, if anyone can call their self an artist and call their work art, whatever it may be, does it really matter what the results of the top ten are? Does it matter when it’s really, supposedly, about the dialogue that takes place around art? Does it matter that the top ten looks – well, however it looks?

Glenn Harper: I think everything is permitted but not everything is convincing. Because there’s not a movement or a fixed set of ideas that artists have to deal with, an artist has to make a case for what they’re doing, because nobody else is going to do it. Whether they’re a professional artist or not, anybody who is making work and putting it in the public, trying to initiate a dialogue, has to set the conditions for what they’re doing are. They have to make a case for it as sculpture if it’s sculpture. They have to make a case for it as art, because there’s no mutually agreed definition for what art is. And an artist who is successful in this sort of media is someone who is able to make a work stand out and communicate on its own without the viewer having any particular foreknowledge of art or any fixed notion of what the thing is that they’re looking at.

NC: Has what you just outlined been hard to find at ArtPrize?

GH: No, there were several pieces as we went around. Actually the first couple of places we were in, as I was being guided around, there were some things that I thought were interesting. I was waiting for something to knock me out of my shoes and it was about halfway through my total tour before I saw something that was doing that for me. And I wasn’t making a decision ahead of time, but I was confident at that point that there would be something I’d be comfortable awarding the prize too.

One of the discussions we’ve been having since I’ve been here is how to give artists the jurors and the public recognized as valuable, but who were not prize-winners, some kind of recognition for what they achieved in their work. There were some things that I saw here that I could have given a prize to, and there were artists whose contact information I’m taking with me because I want to follow what they’re doing in the future. So maybe the conversation may continue with not only jurors like me, but also the public who has had a glimpse of these people. When they see them again they will recognize and see how they’re continuing to evolve their work, and continue the conversation. Any time it’s possible for artists to catch somebody’s attention, there’s a value in that.

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Eyes on the Prize 2011: Curators Make a Difference

Nicole J. Caruth is a freelance writer and curator living in New York. She is a frequent contributor to the Art21 blog. ArtPrize hired Nicole to chronicle the 2009, 2010, and this year’s events. Nicole’s thoughts and opinions are her own and in no way represent an endorsement or objection from ArtPrize toward an individual artist or venue.

David Lorenz, "Potential Revealed," 2011. Watercolor, dimensions unknown. On view at SiTE:LAB.

Art professionals have been skeptical of ArtPrize since the beginning, often because of a misconception that curators are excluded from this event. Except curators have always been present. Rather than being rejected, their role has merely been challenged by the public voting system that allows crowds to make decisions about art and define its meaning for themselves. This is what makes ArtPrize revolutionary. The public vote basically tests the authority of an elite or educated few that has long gone unchecked. On the one hand, this empowering of the masses is awesome. On the other, groupthink — be it happening in the art world or on American Idol — will often fail to recognize talent. Sorry to say, this year’s top ten list is a good example of that. While amping up the curatorial voice might not better these results, it can make a difference.

Independent curators Paul Amenta of SiTE:LAB and Kevin Boehm of The Spot have created buzz at this year’s event. Upon visiting their spaces the reasons are plain to see. They have selected superb artwork, articulated an overall vision, and created exhibition spaces that just feel good. Curators don’t just give you stuff to look at, they create experiences. They don’t simply profess their knowledge, they share it through their own creativity. And with any luck, they strike a balance between their own imaginations and that of the artists they exhibit.

SiTE:LAB second floor before.

SiTE:LAB second floor after. Shinji Turner-Yamamoto, "Disappearances - an eternal journey," 2011. Mineral dust/powder, gypsum, coral fossils, rainwater, dimensions variable.

SiTE:LAB’s space was specifically designed to be a counterpoint to crowded Exhibition Centers and the circus known as The B.O.B. “We could have clearly jam-packed this exhibition with well over 100 artists,” said Amenta. “We only have nine artists in the show. This is big work with a lot of space to view it. We wanted to make sure the work was presented in a way that respects the artists and their work, and also gave large numbers of audience members ability to view that work.” Showing in this 23,000 square-foot dilapidated space are, among others, Alois Kronschlaeger’s gutted elevator-shaft installation Spire that rises up from the basement and beautifully imposes itself on the city skyline; Shinji Turner-Yamamoto’s contemplative fossil and mineral collection Disappearances – an eternal journey; and a favorite of mine, Ericka Beckman’s video Tension Building. “We knew we had a special site and the opportunity to do something unique in the context of ArtPrize. We wanted to make this an amazing exhibit and I think we accomplished that. We had no illusions that anyone in here was going to win. That was not our goal.” Early on, Amenta was given the opportunity to show Mia Tavonatti’s top ten mosaic-by-numbers and turned it down in favor of what’s on view at SiTE:LAB today.

Amenta is a known curator around town and has garnered the respect and trust of local art communities. Years before ArtPrize came along, the Kendall College sculpture professor started organizing (wildly successful) one-night exhibitions in empty buildings. This approach is exactly what I had hoped to see more of in this competition: local artists taking over abject or unused spaces and creating their own exhibitions, using ArtPrize as an umbrella to reactivate parts of their city. And so it was disheartening when I overheard Amenta say, “This will be my last ArtPrize.” He is not so much frustrated with the event as he is wounded by it.

“When the [top ten] announcement was made, it was kind of devastating. Again, it is not that we had any hopes someone was going to win from our venue. But my hope was that there would at least be good artworks in that top ten. I didn’t care where they came from. You know, I’m an artist and it personally kind of hurt. The public spoke and if that’s what they want, I’m just not going to be able to deliver that…I don’t see how I can do this again.”

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Eyes on the Prize 2011: Ten Minutes with Eric Fischl

Nicole J. Caruth is a freelance writer and curator living in New York. She is a frequent contributor to the Art21 blog. ArtPrize hired Nicole to chronicle the 2009, 2010, and this year’s events. Nicole’s thoughts and opinions are her own and in no way represent an endorsement or objection from ArtPrize toward an individual artist or venue.

Eric Fischl, "Bad Boy," 1981. Oil on canvas, 66” x 96".

Eric Fischl is one of the most influential figurative painters of our time. He came to prominence in the 1980s for his depictions of suburban American life. Last week, the New York City-based artist visited Grand Rapids to participate in the ArtPrize Speaker Series. What follows is my brief conversation with the artist at the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art, one stop on his afternoon tour.

Nicole Caruth: From a painter’s perspective, what are your thoughts on the works you’ve seen at ArtPrize?

Eric Fischl: My impressions of the paintings that I’ve seen so far — and obviously I’ve seen only a small portion of the show — is that they’re essentially weak. It’s sort of the weakest aspect, although I’m standing in front of this mural by [The Screwed Arts] collective that’s dynamic and powerful and has great imagination to it. So I would say actually this is sort of the strongest painting type work that I’ve seen.

NC: Chris LaPorte, the grand prize winner of ArtPrize 2010, studied at the New York Academy of Art, where you are the senior critic, and the school is known for taking very formal, academic approaches to art making. From my perspective, a large portion of the general public is drawn to and connects with this style of work. Do you have thoughts about why that may be?

EF: From the public point of view, it’s obvious in that it’s so totally recognizable and expresses skill. So they can identify a quality and at the same time it satisfies their sense of reality. What mystifies me more is why artists want to go there, and its one of the reasons that I actually was teaching at the Academy as a figurative painter myself, and also a narrative painter.

Robert Deyber, "Flower Power," 2011. Acrylic on canvas, 6' x 5' x 1'. On view at Federal Square Building - The Spot.

What compels me is whether one can learn fundamental skills like anatomy, perspective, and things like that, and still break away from the style that prejudices that kind of work so you can make something fresh out of that. Or is it something where a deep knowledge of anatomy is going to ensure an academic understanding of form? It’s an interesting challenge to see if you can blend contemporary content with sort of fundamental skills that are steeped in history. It’s a tough one. I was not trained as a figurative artist, so I had to learn it all myself. I mean, that was at a time when you shouldn’t be painting at all. Painting was totally dead. So if you had to paint, at least you should be an abstract painter, because figure painting was way dead.

We were just talking about the paintings at The Spot, for example, and a lot of them are along the same lines as what you see at the New York Academy. They’re trying, they’re so earnest, you know, and it’s something where the degree of realism is not in sync with the emotional content of the work. There’s a beautiful still life painting there, a kind of traditional still life with these unbelievably rendered flowers. And then some of the flower stems are cut, and there’s fire coming out of them, sending that kind of rocket feeling. And it’s like, why? It’s almost like a throw off joke … the artist must have taken a very long time to so carefully render the thing. What is the essential distrust that the realism isn’t enough? I don’t know.

Justin Hayward, "Maren's and Lauren's Land of Cockaigne," 2011. Oil on canvas, 6' x 8' x 1'. On view at Grand Rapids Public Museum.

NC: There’s a distinction that’s sometimes made here between the so-called serious painter and the “Sunday painter.” I’m curious to know if you ever make those distinctions yourself?

EF: Yeah, absolutely. I certainly draw the distinction between high art and low art and between amateurism and professionalism. There’s a combination of a depth of commitment and skill and then there’s a dividing point where some artists possess talent that goes beyond skill, that’s immeasurable. You can’t instill or teach that. You can just nurture it.

NC: And based on what you’ve seen at ArtPrize so far, do you think the scale tips in one direction or the other?

EF: I have a sense that there’s a certain kind of degree of object making that doesn’t transmit a high energy and feels like more of received idea. You see it often in painting because nowadays people look at imagery on iPhones and they look at reproductions. You get this sense that paintings can be any size, because they don’t have a sense of internal scale, internal necessity. You get a feeling that the surface doesn’t matter because they look at a flatness generalized by technological transmission, so that what you get are artists who don’t actually understand because they haven’t been able to fully invest, maybe because they haven’t experienced themselves the profound and complicated energy that an object can actually have. And so, you have, in some cases, more sort of a sense of a picture or something like that. And, a lot of the installation pieces, I don’t think they’re curious in and of themselves. They don’t necessarily make the space they’re occupying dynamic. So I’m not having a big somatic experience here. I’m not gripped…That’s kind of what I’m thinking so far, but I haven’t seen everything.

Eyes on the Prize 2011: GayGayGay

Nicole J. Caruth is a freelance writer and curator living in New York. She is a frequent contributor to the Art21 blog. ArtPrize hired Nicole to chronicle the 2009, 2010, and this year’s events. Nicole’s thoughts and opinions are her own and in no way represent an endorsement or objection from ArtPrize toward an individual artist or venue.

Jeffrey Augustine Songco, "Protest," 2011. Performance.

Gay rights activists and supporters rejoiced in June when lawmakers voted to legalize same-sex marriage in New York, becoming the sixth and largest state to do so. Here in Michigan, where voters banned same-sex marriage and civil unions in 2004, the movement for gay rights suffered another defeat that same month: Holland City Council* voted against a proposal that would have added sexual orientation and gender identity protection to their anti-discrimination policies. I’m told that gay rights has been a hot-button issue in and around Grand Rapids ever since. What does this have to do with ArtPrize, you ask? Everything. Because art is uniquely capable of bringing together communities through conversation.

*FULL DISCLOSURE: Brian Burch, ArtPrize’s public relations director and editor of the ArtPrize Blog, currently sits on the Holland City Council.

Of the many art education initiatives taking place this year, the queer-oriented panel discussion organized by Reverend Anne Weirich of Westminster Presbyterian Church, struck me as being not only timely, but also brazen. The starting point for the discussion was Jeffery Augustine Songco’s ArtPrize entry GayGayGay Robe, located in Westminster’s lobby.* Songco was joined by Theresa McClelland and Reverend Jim Lucas of Gays in Faith Together (GIFT); Reverend Matthew Cockrum of Fountain Street Church; Pastoral Counselor, Reverend Lorie Schier; Westminster member and practicing attorney Maribeth Jelks, and Westminster’s Christian educator Sherrill Vore, who moderated the discussion.

Jeffrey Augustine Songco, "GayGayGay Robe," 2011. Cotton and paper on dress form, 20" x 30" x 80."

Songco opened his presentation with two YouTube clips, one showing a performance from The Book of Mormon at the recent Tony Awards, and another from the HBO series Curb Your Enthusiasm. To these examples the artist connected his own socially engaged sense of humor, heavily influenced by his upbringing as a child actor-singer and devout Catholic. Songco went on to position his artwork within the lineage of Andy Warhol’s Last Supper painting series and Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ. Where television and the internet are accessible and daily consumed by the masses, I scanned the room wondering if these references to contemporary art were lost on others. But then GayGayGay Robe exists at the intersection of high and low culture, where two supposed extremes collide and fold together. This gave panelists and audience members a way to share their different experiences and, to use the old cliché, find common ground.

Andy Warhol, from the series "The Last Supper," c. 1986.

GayGayGay Robe immediately brings to mind the Ku Klux Klan and history of lynching African Americans in the United States. Understandably, panelists failed to find humor in the work, at least initially. They expressed having had strong and negative visceral reactions to it. Yet they remained incredibly open and inquisitive. “I was troubled by this work,” said Cockrum, “and I’m glad to have been troubled.” Just imagine if Songco had been able to realize his original proposal: an installation of 23 robed figurines standing together in a circle like a brotherhood. Although Westminster accepted just one figure, church administrators offered to fly the artist to Grand Rapids as part of their adult education program. “Because of the provoking nature of my work in the church,” said Songco, “Vore thought it would be necessary to have a discussion … ArtPrize was the catalyst for bringing my artwork to the church, but then the church took it upon itself to expand.”

Westminster panel, left to right: Songco, Schier, Jelks, Lucas, Cockrum, and McClelland.

Now back at home in San Francisco, Songco had this to say about his experience in Grand Rapids:

“I was very surprised how genuinely moved some viewers were. I made a quiet joke with myself that I’d be shot and killed at my first half-hour ArtPrize presentation, but instead of bullets, I got handshakes. The same thing happened the next day at the hour-long panel discussion: handshakes and thank yous. Several people were very thankful that I had created a visual image that perfectly represented the self-hatred they personally experienced in their own lives. I’m just surprised that I really connected with people on a conceptual level, beyond all these warm fuzzy images of fish swimming in ponds and sunsets in the distance.”

GayGayGay Robe is layered with possible meanings and among the most complex and through-provoking entries I’ve seen so far. To be sure, it’s also one of few at ArtPrize that addresses queer identity. At Diversions Nightclub and Pub 43, local gay and lesbian bars, you can find a painting or two that suggest same-sex relationships. Along Ionia Street, Christina Miller alludes to intimacy between two men in her painting installation True Portrait of an American Family. Flamboyant stereotypes take the stage in a “Glee meets the Sopranos” type of production from the community theatre group Backstage Drama. And at Fountain Street Church, their annual ArtPrize installation is devoted to the theme of “civil liberties.” With the exception of Dominic Sansome’s Brand New God, the works on view here unfortunately fail to convey the dynamism of the overarching message.

Stacie Dubay, "After the Rainbow Fell" (detail), 2011. Mixed media, 7 x 2 x 2.

As I started to say during Critical Discourse, the type of art I most enjoy not only does what ArtPrize has set out to do — create “conversation” — it also moves a conversation forward. It tells us something about the human condition and gives us new ways of seeing and sharing our social experiences, issues and concerns. Even in light of the current top ten, Westminster’s panel discussion gives me hope for the future of ArtPrize and the future of this region. Art, and as a result ArtPrize, not only gives communities reasons to gather, but also forces them to ask questions they might not otherwise consider. It encourages people to step outside their comfort zones, which is more important and impactful than any cash award or legislation will ever be.

* Songco is a fellow Art21 blogger. We had never talked nor had I even heard of him before last week. We met randomly in the Artist’s Lounge at The Hub. Small world.

Eyes on the Prize 2011: An Interview with Reed Kroloff, Urban Space Award Juror

Nicole J. Caruth is a freelance writer and curator living in New York. She is a frequent contributor to the Art21 blog. ArtPrize hired Nicole to chronicle the 2009, 2010, and 2011 events. Nicole’s thoughts and opinions are her own and in no way represent an endorsement or objection from ArtPrize toward an individual artist or venue.

Nicole Caruth: So you’re responsible for giving the award for best use of “urban space.” That sounds very broad. How have you defined this for the purposes of ArtPrize. Or maybe it has been defined for you?

Reed Kroloff: Well, we’ve been working to give a definition that would make sense to as broad an audience as possible. And I think it’s probably easiest to say that what we’ve been looking for is work that consciously takes advantage of an urban setting, as opposed to pieces of art that are simply dropped down in an urban environment.

NC: So a sort of site specificity?

RK: Site specificity, or at least intention, or in the art criticism word, ‘intentionality.’ Whatever it is, it was originally conceived — not designed — as something that would really only work in an urban environment. You couldn’t pick it up and move it to somewhere else and go, ‘Oh, yeah, that’s fine.’ These are things that are really consciously created for urban settings. That’s a fairly broad definition because we didn’t want to get so narrow that we kicked everything out. But it really eliminates large numbers of entries that might be responding to an item, but aren’t really responding to the whole urban environment.

I think of the work of the artists/architects Diller and Scofidio, who have for years spent a great deal of time looking at the notion of surveillance or observation as it occurs in many locations, but particularly in cities. They did a series of installations that were so consciously and clearly about being in a city and being watched in that city or looked at that you couldn’t imagine them taking place in any other kind of environment at all. And they took advantage of a site very specifically. They attached themselves to it. They had one piece that literally crawled up and down the sides of buildings or peered in the windows or looked out from. Those sorts of ways, as opposed to sticking something on a lamppost [for instance] that makes it better and more interesting. That’s the distinction we’re trying to draw.

NC: In your opinion, why does an artist’s use of urban space need to be acknowledged in a competition like this?

RK: Well, obviously, the folks at ArtPrize thought that up, and my congratulations to them. Why is it important? Because in this country and around the world the vast, the preponderant majority of people live in cities and experience urban spaces every single day. Urban spaces of one kind or another; successful, unsuccessful, large, small, urban, suburban, anything where we create living environments and working environments that bring lots of people together, that’s the definition in a way of a city and urban habitation. And so little attention is given to making those environments something that is desirable, as opposed to simply accidental. Even when we plan them at the macro level — i.e. streets are going to go here, buildings are going to be set back that amount of space, whatever kinds of particular care is given to it –very rarely does it go beyond the kind of gross scale issues, the larger scale issues. The rest is just left to chance, and almost never — not never — but almost never do we say, ‘We want to think about how to consciously make this place a really enjoyable one,’ versus ‘It’s functional, we’re done, move on.’ This category [the Urban Space Award] allows us to look at a variety of ways that people have attacked that problem, and to my mind, why would you not? We live in cities. They ought to be good places, and for the most part they’re mediocre at best and they go down from there.

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Eyes on the Prize 2011: Trending Now?

Nicole J. Caruth is a freelance writer and curator living in New York. She is a frequent contributor to the Art21 blog. ArtPrize hired Nicole to chronicle the 2009, 2010, and this year’s events. Nicole’s thoughts and opinions are her own and in no way represent an endorsement or objection from ArtPrize toward an individual artist or venue.

As voting ramps up in these final hours of round one, let’s take a look at an informal category so many ArtPrizers love to hate: art made of little things or stuff made of stuff.

Jaime Irizarry, "Giant One Flag of the Nations," 2008. Fabric, 60 x 100 ft. Photo: ArtPrize Worst

Giant One Flag of the Nations, a flag made of flags, billows from JW Marriott’s parking structure. ArtPrize Worst, on whom god has bestowed the gift of snark, outlines this recipe for art: “Throw Jasper Johns, all the representatives of the UN, and Billy Graham into a big pot. Simmer for a year and serve with a side of ughhh.” Following this path of religious metaart is Walking in HIS Steps, a stiletto made of shoes that reminds me of Pole Fitness for Jesus.

Renaissance C.O.G.I.C. OTMC Youth Deparment, Walking in HIS Steps, 2011. Old shoes, 10 x 4 ft. Photo via ArtPrize.

Ji Lee, "Piece of Peace, Grand Rapids," 2011. Photo: Jay Freeman.

ArtPrize 2011 is not short on faith-related works. Ji Lee’s Pieces of Mind is one of the best I’ve seen. Lee is not only an artist, but also creative director of Facebook. I’d say he knows something about making bits and pieces work together to creatively engage communities. Ostensibly drawing on Buddhist tenets like enlightenment through awareness, Lee invites ArtPrizers to take from his collection of 5,000 miniature white buddha figurines at the UICA and disperse them across Grand Rapids. Though you won’t find many propped along the outer windowsills of the museum where they once were, you will find them in the unlikeliest locations around town. People are encouraged to take and submit pictures of the figurines where they’ve been left or encountered at random.

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