ArtPrize Still Sparking Debate On Twitter

Sorry, I have a ton of posts I need to do.

Paddy Johnson of Art Fag city is getting feedback about listing ArtPrize as on her top shows list.

"Over at WNYC, Carolina Miranda takes issue with my naming of ArtPrize as one of the year’s best exhibitions. Frankly, I’m surprised it took this long for someone to say something. The contest doesn’t exactly meet the standard criteria us Chelsea folk use to evaluate art; experts (and collectors) do not determine the worth of a work but two rounds of public voting will. You can imagine the quality of these results. Plus, ArtPrize promotion is the hokiest of hokey. Using a formula that exalts the power of democracy by invoking both American-Idol and Internet 2.0 euphoria, the “radically open” contest rhetoric couldn’t be more grating."

Follow the talk on twitter by looking for the #Artprize hashtag. Likely that more than 80% of the commenters, including myself have never experienced the event.

ArtPrize Boosts It's Juried Prize: Is That a Good Thing?

Michigan's ArtPrize is an event that right off the bat combined creative placemaking, art, economic development and public interaction in ways that excited me.

Likewise, in spite of it's success,(and the fact it's not in NY or LA) the art establishment has mostly ignored or tried to look down on it. "Oh My God, they really voted a non ironic religious piece the top award!"

For better or worse, Artprize is tipping the scale away from public voting and more towards "expert jurors".

From Hyperallergic

The top public vote award will be a little smaller next year, $200,000 instead of the $250,000 offered this year, but the organization is adding a brand new juried award of $100,000, which puts it in the same monetary league at the Hugo Boss Prize (also $100,000) and considerably more than the Turner Prize with its £25,000 award (roughly $39,000).

Some facts about ArtPrize 2011:

-1,582 artists from 39 countries and 43 US states took part

-The participating artists installed their work at 164 venues in a three-square-mile district in Grand Rapids

-38,000 registered voters submitted 383,000 total votes for the public prize

-Smartphones increased voting 62%

Artprize 2011 Timelapse from Michael Cook on Vimeo.

Michigan's ArtPrize Competition Continues To Grow and Evolve

ArtPrize 2011: September 21 - October 9
Grand Rapids, Michigan

I've posted a few times in the past when ArtPrize first started-in perhaps what was percieved as the least likely place-Michigan.

It's continued success comes as no surprise to me--raising the very real question--why is this type of open ended invitation for creative interaction between communities and the wider world still so rare?

A good recent article from The Washington Post--which is covering some of the D.C. area artists participating.

Started in 2009 by Rick DeVos, with funding from his family foundation, the showcase now attracts 1, 582 artists from 36 countries and 42 states. The competition is spread over 164 venues around Grand Rapids, an approach which won an “Our Town” grant from the National Endowment for the Arts in July. “We want to reboot the conversation with the public around the arts,” said Catherine Creamer, the executive director of ArtPrize.

The unusual exhibition style is combined with a departure from the expert juried panels. From the opening on September 21 until September 28 the public votes on all the art. Then the Top 10 works are announced on September 29 and the public can cast one vote for its favorite until October 5. The festival closes October 9.

In spite of lots of buzz, I can't help feeling the "professional, institutional arts infrastructure is just trying to ignore all the implied potential here. Thankfully, many artist's are not.

"ArtPrize appealed to her because “it’s a very different concept. The public is voting, and you are getting unbelievable exposure,” Hester said .

In Grand Rapids the work is displayed for 19 days. The venues range from a coffee shop to a mechanics workshop to a theater. “We wanted to bring artists together and let the public curate,” said Creamer, the program’s executive director. The boundary of the displays are 3 -square miles from downtown Grand Rapids."

Anyone from the wider, Western Pennsylvania, West Virginia or Ohio Region participating or attending? What are your thoughts?

Holy Crap: Art Prize Draws Thousands To Grand Rapids

Ok, I didn't know anything at all about this, but I'll go out on a limb and say this is a potential game changer for the entire history of the state of Michigan and perhaps the entire "Rust Belt".

To set the stage here, the statistics and evidence show Michigan to be in at the very least a full blown depression bringing to mind words like disaster area and catastrophe.

"Michigan's seasonally adjusted unemployment inched up a tenth of a percentage point in September to 15.3 percent, state officials said Wednesday.

The figure compares with a 9.8 percent U.S. unemployment rate for the same month. The U.S. Bureau of Labor is scheduled to update the unemployment rates for all 50 states later this month, but Michigan has had the nation's highest unemployment rate since early 2006."

Grim, awfull; but it don't tell the half of it.

Following the link in the story, brings us this headine- "Discouragement over bleak job market shrank Michigan's labor force by 79,000 during last year."

Yes by the government's sick and obviously dishonest logic, people who are too discouraged to look for work, are not considered unemployed. However, it doesn't stop there a whole range of other people aren't counted in that figure either.



Above is a chart of the nationwide U6 unemployment rate.

The U6 rate includes

U1: Percentage of labor force unemployed 15 weeks or longer.

U2: Percentage of labor force who lost jobs or completed temporary work.

U3: Official unemployment rate per ILO definition.

U4: U3 + "discouraged workers", or those who have stopped looking for work because current economic conditions make them believe that no work is available for them.

U5: U4 + other "marginally attached workers", or "loosely attached workers", or those who "would like" and are able to work, but have not looked for work recently.

U6: U5 + Part time workers who want to work full time, but cannot due to economic reasons.

But, Peter Schiff and others have pointed out that this figure also doesn't count a lot of people. If you own a "business or are self employed or an "independent contractor". You are not counted as unemployed. However, if your business is not doing well, you may have little or no income. Likewise, the retired are also seeing a huge decline in their savings.

Sorry, but it get's a lot worse. U6 unemployment/underemployment in Michigan, Oregon, California and Rhode Island is over 20%. Even by these criteria, Michigan is in a class by itself since it's had huge unemployment for many,many years.The main reason things aren't worse is that almost anyone with other options leaves the state.

"About 109,000 more people left Michigan last year than moved in. It is one of the worst rates in the nation, quadruple the loss of just eight years ago. The state loses a family every 12 minutes, and the families who are leaving -- young, well-educated high-income earners -- are the people the state desperately needs to rebuild.

Long treated as a symptom of Michigan's economic woes, outmigration has exploded into a massive problem of its own, a slow-motion Katrina splintering families, gutting state coffers and crippling an already hobbled economy, one moving van at a time."

I'll try to stop there but if you google.

Michigan Bankruptcy Rate
Michigan Foreclosure Rate
Michigan Homeless Stats

Or a long list of other measures, you will see a lot of bad stuff. Don't click images without some morphine on hand.

With all this in mind and in light of the years and billions spent efforts by the state, local and federal government to "fix things"; one wouldn't have guessed $500,000 dollars put up by a private individual as award money in an "American Idol style" art contest would have had much impact.

"Unprepared for the surge in ArtPrize visitors, some restaurants ran out of food and were forced to close early. Others stuck to their policy of being closed Sundays.

"Nobody had any clue this would happen," Doug Small, president of the Grand Rapids/Kent County Convention & Visitors Bureau, said Wednesday.

Few hotels tracked ArtPrize traffic, Small said. Because the summer travel season was over and no other major events were taking place in the area, he said it's likely many extra hotel guests were there because of ArtPrize."

I will try to follow up on this.