2011 Art Prize GR MI

"Rusty"

"Metaphorest" 

Art Prize is a competition open to any artist who can find a venue to display their work in the beautiful city of Grand Rapids, Michigan. The event runs for 19 days and attracts over 200,000 visitors to a city that is supposedly dying. When I was downtown this past weekend the streets of GR were undoubtedly alive. From the middle of September to early October Grand Rapids is a bustling metropolis due to this artistic event. Art Prize brings a new crowd to the city. Numerous people come from the suburbs, all over the state and even from across the US to participate, vote or just enjoy the artwork and splendor of the fall season. Whatever the reason for coming to see the artwork the influx of people to the city brings customers to restaurants, bars and storefronts helping  local entrepreneurs boost revenues. The attraction does wonders for the city and personally I would love to see Art Prize continue for years to come. Honestly though the artwork this year was not on par with that of the previous two years. I was only able to be in the city for a day, so I did not get the chance to witness all the artwork, but what I did see did not impress me at all. Don't get me wrong, there were some nice pieces, but I wouldn't say any were really worthy of the $250,000 check for the first prize winner. The art that won in 09 and 10 were both equally amazing and this year's top ten fails in comparison. Like anything else there will be good years and bad years though. As long as "Crucifixion" or "Under Construction" don't win I won't be too upset. It would be a real shame if the conservative church goers of GR vote the crucifix mosaic all the way to the win because that would certainly hurt the credibility of the event for future years. Only in Grand Rapids would something like that happen, but we will just have to wait until  tomorrow to see who is named the winner of Art Prize 2011. My hope is that one of the works from the above photos will win, but it's difficult to interpret the art taste of the masses so who knows?

Check out the official Art Prize website www.artprize.org