A new economic impact study was released this morning by Experience Grand Rapids, the region’s convention and visitors bureau. The study, conducted by the Anderson Economic Group, reveals that the 2011 ArtPrize event added $15.4 million to the Grand Rapids/Kent County economy, attracted more than 320,000 visitors and created more than 200 new jobs during its 19 days.
From Scott Watkins, with AEG:
“The study provides a comprehensive assessment of event attendance, visitor spending, local spending by the ArtPrize organization, and the economic impacts that accrue beyond the initial expenditures of visitors and the host organization. It also accounts for economic substitution. The analysis illustrates the new economic activity attributable to ArtPrize and does not double count spending in the area that would have otherwise occurred if the event was not held.”
The full report can be found here. Read the whole thing.
ArtPrize is supportive of this research study. From our perspective, communities thrive when people are given the flexibility and encouragement to be creative and a population is provided with the freedom to voice their opinions, and to just plain have fun. The Anderson study shows that small experiments like ArtPrize can grow to have significant impact, and we are pleased that our region is thriving as a result.
We hope 2012 will be an even bigger year for ArtPrize, with the tweaks we announced earlier this month:
self-sustainability
enabling the “credible mass” within the “critical mass”
empowered professional voices
ArtPrize thanks everyone for a successful 2011, and we look forward to seeing you in the new year!
If you’re not familiar with 5×5 Night, you should be. Like ArtPrize, it’s an incredible experiment taking place in Grand Rapids that is positively impacting our culture.
Here’s the basics: the platform invites five presenters to show five slides for five minutes to five judges for a chance at $5,000.
Among the judges is ArtPrize’s own Catherine Creamer, our executive director, and an entrepreneur as well as an artist in her own right. Catherine joins four others, including Rick DeVos, Sam Cummings, principal and managing partner at CWD Real Estate, Jay Frankhouse, partner at Fuel-D, and Diana Sieger, president of the Grand Rapids Community Foundation, For more on Catherine’s background, and the bios of the other judges go here.
In the same way that ArtPrize believes that anyone can be an artist, 5×5 believes that anyone can have a good idea for a business or a project. The platform is specifically designed to help each one of us to take small risks by lowering the first barrier to entrepreneurship–getting people to listen.
This is also the first event where all 5×5 presenters have been chosen by the community. You can still vote for presenters at the 5×5 Night website. Sign up and vote today. We’ll all see how the experiment unfolds.
5×5 Night returns the Cook Auditorium in the Grand Rapids Art Museum, Tuesday, Nov. 29, 5:00-7:30PM. $5 admission. More here.
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
There’s a lot of you who have spoken your mind on this blog. And for that, we are grateful. ArtPrize is about the dialog that surrounds contemporary art, and among the starting points of that dialog is voting.
Your vote is critical. You have until 11:59 p.m. on Wed., Oct. 5, 2011 to vote on which Top 10 artist will win ArtPrize 2011.
You can also cast your Top 10 vote by texting the artist up vote number to 808080 or using the ArtPrize app on either the iPhone or Android platforms.
If you have not activated your voting status in person at the event, head to a registration site ASAP. They’ll set you (and your mobile device) up fast.
Round 1 voting in ArtPrize ends tonight at 11:59 p.m.
If you like something, vote up. If you really want it to win, tell your friends to vote for it too.
After Midnight, we will close voting, which means on Thursday, Sept. 29, when you’re eating your morning cereal and decide to finally vote, you won’t be able to vote!
On Thursday, ArtPrize will audit the results of your vote. We will ensure that all of the “i’s” were dotted and “t”s were crossed and papers signed in preparation of the announcement of our Top 10 finalists.
Join us at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 29 in Rosa Parks Circle to kick off the fun. At 6:00 p.m., Rick DeVos will announce the Top 10.
After the Top 10 are announced, voting will resume. Every voter has ONE VOTE LEFT to use on one of the top 10. (You can change your vote among the top 10 until voting closes for Round 2 at 11:59 p.m. on Wednesday, October 5.
Are you activated?
You have until 8:00 p.m. tonight to present your government issued ID at a voter registration site and get activated to vote in Round 1. Voter registration sites will close at 8:00 p.m.
Anyone can still get activated to vote for Round 2 until close of venues next Wednesday, October 6, but those who wait until tomorrow can only vote among the Top 10.
Presented by Kendall College of Art and Design of Ferris State University
The ArtPrize Speaker Series returns in 2011 with seven days of distinguished art experts, artists, designers, urban planners and more. The Speaker Series will be held at The HUB at 41 Sheldon Blvd.
ArtPrize Speaker Series
September 28, 2011
Cocktails: 6:00 p.m.
Presentation: 7:00 p.m
The Speaker Series Express keeps on rolling, and on Sept. 28 ArtPrize hosts Anne Ellegood, senior curator at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles.
Before joining the Hammer, Ellegood served as curator of contemporary art at the Hirshorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in D.C. and as the associate curator at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York.
As senior curator, Ellegood organizes large-scale exhibitions and oversees Hammer Projects, a series of installations and exhibitions by emerging artists from Los Angeles, the United States and abroad.
The Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Culture Center, or the Hammer Museum as it is more commonly known, is an art museum in the Westwood district of Los Angeles, California. It is operated by UCLA’s School of the Arts and Architecture.
Presented by Kendall College of Art and Design of Ferris State University
The ArtPrize Speaker Series returns in 2011 with seven days of distinguished art experts, artists, designers, urban planners and more. The Speaker Series will be held at The HUB at 41 Sheldon Blvd.
ArtPrize Speaker Series
September 27, 2011
Cocktails: 6:00 p.m.
Presentation: 7:00 p.m.
On Sept. 27 we hear from internationally acclaimed American painter, sculptor and printmaker, Eric Fischl. His artwork is represented in many distinguished museums throughout the world and has been featured in more than one thousand publications. His extraordinary achievements throughout his career have made him one of the most influential figurative painters of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Fischl’s latest project is America: Now and Here, a traveling, multi-disciplinary exhibition of 150 of some of America’s most celebrated visual artists, musicians, poets, playwrights, and filmmakers, designed to spark a national conversation about American identity through the arts. The project includes 18 trucks custom-designed to serve as mobile galleries which travel cross-country, and at each location, they will unfold to reveal 3,300 square feet of exhibition space. Together, the whole caravan contains more than 60 works of visual art, 16 music listening stations, and at least two theater spaces where actors can perform scenes and monologues live.
The project launched on May 5th, 2011 in Kansas City before traveling to Detroit and Chicago. The cross-country journey is currently traveling to communities from coast to coast.
Presented by Kendall College of Art and Design of Ferris State University
The ArtPrize Speaker Series returns in 2011 with seven days of distinguished art experts, artists, designers, urban planners and more. The Speaker Series will be held at The HUB at 41 Sheldon Blvd.
ArtPrize Speaker Series
September 26, 2011
Cocktails: 6:00 p.m.
Presentation: 7:00 p.m.
The event kicks off Monday, Sept. 26 with Reed Kroloff, the Director of the Cranbrook Academy of Art and Art Museum, a principal at jones|kroloff, an international architecture firm, and a nationally known commentator in the world of architecture and urban design.
Kroloff is known for his outspoken approach to the problems of rebuilding cites and a fearless eye for design. Just like ArtPrize is transforming how Grand Rapids is transforming the urban experience, Kroloff is helping to change the urban landscape of cities from New York to New Orleans.
Children and young adults challenge us to think differently, to take a new perspective. Artists do the same. Today is the first of two ArtPrize education days. These days are creative catalysts, combining artists, their installations and the youth of Michigan and challenge them to question and investigate art.
In the past two years of ArtPrize, hundreds of schools brought hundreds more busses to bring more than 7,000 students to downtown Grand Rapids, all of it happening without a glitch, thanks to the logistical skills of the Arts Council of Greater Grand Rapids. The event continues to be a smashing success thanks to our amazing institutional partners:
Arts Council of Greater Grand Rapids
Grand Rapids Art Museum
Grand Rapids Children’s Museum
Grand Valley State University
The Public Museum of Grand Rapids
St. Cecilia Music Center
Urban Institute for Contemporary Art (UICA)
This group established ARTcation, a community-wide collaboration between art and humanities organizations that uses downtown Grand Rapids as a learning laboratory. By combining their resources and partnering with ArtPrize, we provide students with free programming that supports multi-sensory learning experiences and active curriculum investigations.
ARTcation is presented by PNC Bank and is coordinated through the Grand Rapids Community Foundation and the Arts Council of Greater Grand Rapids.
It all starts tonight on the Westside. If you’re looking for free, fun, fantastic exploration in ArtPrize’s largest neighborhood, we know where you should start your journey. Check it out!
Westside Neighborhood – GO TIME!
Friday, Sept. 23;
6:00-8:30 p.m.
Location: Parking lot at 620 Stocking Avenue NW, next to Compucraft
Begin your Westside neighborhood journey at our “GO” Station!
We’re giving away 300 FREE maps along with a snack and beverage when you arrive. We’ll give you instructions and a sticker sheet to begin your journey. Between 8-8:30pm, return with your marked map to the “GO” Station – the first 100 people to visit five or more venues get FREE ArtPrize stuff!
But wait… one important note, you’ll need to make the most of your time seeing art – no freebies will be given away until venues close at 8:00pm!
If you’re not familiar with 5×5 Night, you should be. Like ArtPrize, it’s an incredible experiment taking place in Grand Rapids that is positively impacting our culture.
Among the judges is ArtPrize’s own Catherine Creamer, our executive director, and an entrepreneur as well as an artist in her own right. Catherine joins four others, including Rick DeVos, Sam Cummings, principal and managing partner at CWD Real Estate, Jay Frankhouse, partner at Fuel-D, and Diana Sieger, president of the Grand Rapids Community Foundation, For more on Catherine’s background, and the bios of the other judges go 
If you like something, vote up. If you really want it to win, tell your friends to vote for it too. 
The ArtPrize Speaker Series returns in 2011 with seven days of distinguished art experts, artists, designers, urban planners and more. The Speaker Series will be held at The HUB at 41 Sheldon Blvd.
The ArtPrize Speaker Series returns in 2011 with seven days of distinguished art experts, artists, designers, urban planners and more. The Speaker Series will be held at 
Presented by Kendall College of Art and Design of Ferris State University 