Finding Art After ArtPrize

During ArtPrize in Grand Rapids, Art is everywhere. It’s in the public parks and community space and in shop windows. It’s almost harder to avoid Art.

But now ArtPrize is over and the Art is gone. So where do we go when we have that craving for a little culture?

Coffee Shops and Restaurants

Grand Rapids food and beverage establishments have a great habit of showing Art all year round. Be sure to take a look around the next time you go to get a cup of coffee.

Galleries

Because of ArtPrize, we’ve got a growing number of Art galleries in the area. Galleries are free of charge and don’t require a purchase to look around. A lot of them have special openings. You can check out things like Avenue for the Arts too. They organize First Friday gallery hops and other events during the year centered around Art.

Museums

If you’re looking in Grand Rapids, we’ve got the Urban Institute of Contemporary Art, the Grand Rapids Art Museum and the Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park. The UICA always has a great selection of independent films on tap. The GRAM is free every Tuesday and the Meijer Gardens not only has expansive grounds filled with interesting wildlife and plant life, they also have a world class collection of sculptural Art and fantastic exhibits.

If you want to head outside of Grand Rapids, many of the surrounding cities have small museums and Arts organizations. If you want big, world class Art museums, the Detroit Institute of Art has a huge collection, as does the Art Institute of Chicago. Both are just a few hours drive from Grand Rapids and the entry fee is well worth it if you’ve got the whole day and a comfortable pair of shoes.

(Pictured is “I, You, She or He…” by Jaume Plensa which is part of the collection at Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park)

If I Were A Juror

The votes are in and the public vote top 20 are up. I can’t say I’m surprised by most of them. Once again, the focus has fallen mostly on items with high degrees of technical difficulty or a certain kind of… gimmick. Still, there are a few shining stars in the bunch and one can only hope that one of those takes the top spot.

As far as the top picks for the juried prizes, I’m fairly pleased. Still, I’d like to take a crack at this. Some of the pieces they chose I haven’t had the chance to see yet. I mean seeing 1,500 pieces of Art in three weeks is pretty impossible, nevermind seeing them in the first week and a half! So, here are my winners if I were a juror and had to pick right now.

2-Dimensional: City As Muse by Rick Beerhorst at the UICA.

I’ve always been a fan of Rick Beerhorst’s ArtPrize entries and the folk art feel they’ve got, but this year, not only is it fantastic, it’s huge. This painting pays homage to Grand Rapids in the best way possible. It takes you over as soon as you walk into the room and it keeps its hold on you long after you leave.

3-Dimensional: The Delicacy of Place by Kate Gesel at the Calvin College 106 Gallery

A piece of Art doesn’t have to be big to make a big impact. It doesn’t have to be in a big exhibition center to deserve recognition. This thing is STUNNING. You need to go see it. Seriously, if it wasn’t 11 pm I’d tell you to go right now. The way she has printed these delicate scenes on tissue thin paper takes a huge amount of skill. The frames come out from the wall so when the slightest breeze blows through, the paper, which is not attached on the sides or bottom, floats out like a sheer curtain in front of an open window. It’s just plain lovely.

Installation: Intersections by Anila Quayyum Agha at the Grand Rapids Art Museum

There is a reason this piece was picked by both the jurors AND the public vote as a finalist. When you walk into this installation at the GRAM you are surrounded by light. The wooden box in the center is cut with an intricate pattern that fills the gallery. It’ll be hard to beat for sure.

Time Based: Urban Tumbleweed by Nathan Lareau at Cathedral Square

When I saw this video, I actually chuckled. The tumbleweed itself is pretty cool, and it makes some amazing sounds in the video. Not only that, it just looks cool rolling down sidewalks and through parking lots and the woods. It’s fun. Sometimes that’s all you need.

Venue: Western Michigan University

This is not one of the big exhibition centers. It’s not one of those eclectic nomadic venues like Site:LAB. Western Michigan has one floor of Art. It’s a big open space on their fifth floor and there is a huge variety of work in there. Every medium, every dimension, installation and time based pieces. They’ve got it all and it’s all pretty good.

Overall: Bower by Tim Lowly at the Grand Rapids Art Museum (pictured with this post)

This painting stuck with me. I had the hardest time deciding what to choose for this, but ultimately it had to be this one. It has this kind of sacred peaceful aura about it. It’s large but not over the top, muted and soft. It’s quiet. It’s the kind of painting that affects you even if you don’t understand why. And it’s exactly the kind of thing that should be winning awards at ArtPrize.

Art In the City

Last weekend I went to a printmaking conference in Detroit. As you may know, Detroit has had some difficulty in recent years. At one point, it even seemed like they would have to start selling off part of the collection at the Detroit Institute of Arts. Driving into the city, that was the version of Detroit we saw. It was the middle of the day in downtown Detroit and the streets were EMPTY. But then something happened. On Friday and Saturday night, there was an event happening. Not a sporting event (which sometimes seems like the only reason people go to Detroit) but an Art event called Dlectricity. All along the Woodward corridor, galleries were open and public spaces were transformed using light and video installations. And there were people. Lots and lots of people, all over Detroit.

In the same way, the ArtPrize competition has revitalized Grand Rapids. This city has gone from stagnant to spectacular. Grand Rapids has actually become one of the only cities in the Midwest to show economic growth in the midst of whatever recession thing we’ve got going on at the moment. And this is because of Art!

I think Art is this great connector. We all have this ability to share a sense of awe and wonder. When you see a video projected on the front of a museum, with music blaring and people in the streets, watching and dancing and exploring, how can you not feel excited?! When an entire city becomes an Art gallery for 3 weeks, and not only do people come look at it, but they participate in it and talk about it, how can you argue that Art has become irrelevant? Even the police station has Art in the windows!

Here in Grand Rapids, as we start deciding winners, let’s go to venues out of our way. Let’s have conversations with strangers about what we like and where to find it. Let’s walk laps around this place and vote for our favorite pieces. Let’s appreciate the way this brings us together and allows our cities to grow.

(Pictured is Intersections by Anila Quayyum Agha, currently on display for ArtPrize at the Grand Rapids Art Museum.)

Testing the Waters of ArtPrize 2014

I don’t know if anyone else here in Grand Rapids feels this way, but ArtPrize feel a little different to me this year. It’s almost as if everything shifted when they announced that this year, for the first time, the juried award would be equal to the voted award. If I’m being perfectly honest, I’m a little bit excited. I now have an expectation that the amount of high quality Art on display will have grown tremendously, and as such will receive much more attention than in previous years.

On the other hand, ArtPrize was originally conceived purely as an open Art competition that relies entirely on public vote. Have we lost confidence in our visitors and their ability to choose the best possible work? I think in some ways we have. For the past five years, the ArtPrize top 10 has been comprised mostly of gimmicky (sometimes even kitschy) artwork that has been displayed in easily accessible public or outdoor spaces located right in the center of the city. Questions have been raised on quality and fairness of location. I myself have serious doubts as to whether or not visitors understand the responsibility that comes with handing out such a large monetary prize.

Still, despite the problems, generally the winners of ArtPrize have been quality pieces of work. (I will note that the winners of the voted prize tend to exclude more conceptual or abstract work in favor of large, highly technical pieces.) I do hope, as ArtPrize continues to grow and change over the years, that we are able to open ourselves up to all kinds of Art, not just relying on the jurors to expand our horizons for us.

As ArtPrize gets started, I really want to encourage those of you in the Grand Rapids area to really consider what pieces you’re voting for. Do they make you think? Do they push you to consider new ideas and possibilities? Do they deserve to win $200,000? Take your time! Look around, not only in exhibition centers but the small shops in the area. Only have a weekend? Plan ahead. Use your time wisely and make your votes count. Talk to the artists if you have the opportunity to do so. Be ready to learn.

If not sure where to start, here are some tips from someone with experience.  If you’re looking for places you can hit in one day, hit up the exhibition centers downtown like the Grand Rapids Art Museum and then wander through the small shops and venues in the surrounding area. If you want whimsey, a lot of the outdoor spaces like the Grand River, Ah-Nab-Awen Park and the area around the Public Museum tend to have some fun things you can interact with. If you want a good variety, DeVos place and the Women’s City Club typically show a lot of different sizes and mediums so you can see a very good mix of Art. For music lovers, St. Cecilia’s has all of the musical entries available to listen to in their basement. And finally, if you’re very adventurous and looking for something to push you out of your comfort zone, check out places like Kendall College of Art and Design, SiTE:LAB, The Meijer Gardens and the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art, all places that show site specific installations and pieces that push boundaries.

(Image is detail of Walking On Water by Makoto Fujimura, which is on display for ArtPrize 2014 at The Acton Institute.)

Love, Hate, ArtPrize, and the Open Art Competition

It has been my privilege these past few years to live in Grand Rapids, Michigan. For those of you that aren’t familiar with this lovely city, Grand Rapids is home to the largest public Art competition in the world, ArtPrize. This competition is now in its 6th year and it’s starting this week on Wednesday, September 24. Because of this, I will be attempting to write three times a week for the next three and a half weeks. Yikes.

Since many of you may not live in or near Grand Rapids, here is your introduction. ArtPrize was started in Grand Rapids in 2009 as the brainchild of Rick DeVos. The premise was simple. Anyone can enter as long as you pay the entry fee and connect with a venue. Any business or organization in the general downtown area can sign up to be a venue and display Art. Anyone that attends can sign up to vote for a winner. 4th-10th place winners got $7,000, 3rd got $50,000, 2nd got $100,000 and 1st got a whopping $250,000, the highest award for any Art competition in the world. That first year, 1,200 pieces of Art took over downtown Grand Rapids. Since then, we have seen entries in the Grand River, on several of the bridges, hanging from the tops of buildings and flying over our public parks. Everyone gets involved, including the police station, the Art museum and several area churches. Rules have been changed and things have been added (there are now TWO $200,000 1st prize awards, one for the public vote and one juried) but one thing that sticks is that people flood the downtown area. Just to see Art.

As an artist myself, this makes me pretty happy. I want people to be educated about Art and interested in the discussions surrounding it. And because of ArtPrize, they are! For three and a half weeks every year, Art is on the news and in the streets. People are being exposed to abstract and realist paintings, huge detailed sculptures, conceptual Art, non-traditional art forms,  performance Art, and they are learning in the process. Children in this city are being surrounded by an atmosphere of creativity. I myself have been an ArtPrize volunteer, an ArtPrize artist, and I even applied for an ArtPrize job once. My messenger bag is actually made out of an ArtPrize banner. I LOVE ArtPrize.

But of course nothing is perfect, and when you have an Art competition where the winner is decided by the public, things don’t always turn out the way one might hope. Some venues display Art that is more gimmick than anything else (giant steampunk pigs, bears made of tires, fire breathing dragons, etc.) and many people vote based on spectacle and shock value. Last year, I was particularly disappointed with the top 10 from the public vote, the best of which was the winner, a 4 panel Art quilt of a lakeshore landscape. Then there’s the other problem – the venue problem. People with only a Saturday to spare stick to large exhibition centers, neglecting the smaller shops and fringe venues that may hold hidden gems. When I was an ArtPrize artist, my venue was on the outskirts with no bus routes going by and oddball hours. I worked hard, but no one came. It’s times like that when I really HATE ArtPrize.

This year, the 6th year, I have high expectations. For the first time, the juried award is the same amount as the public vote award. One of my very favorite artists, Makoto Fujimura, will be here from New York City, displaying his piece and giving a lecture. My school will be displaying the work of graduate students during ArtPrize. Art has already started going up and my anticipation is high. On Wednesday, I will be going to see as much of the Art as possible and making note of the best venues, out of the way places to find great Art, the best pieces for discussion and anything else that this year’s round may inspire. I’m excited to share this crazy thing with all of you.

(Sessilanoid by James Peterson, on display at the Grand Rapids Art Museum during ArtPrize 2013. Photo by E. J. Cobb)

Why That Famous Stuff Is Famous Part 5: Pop Art

Pop Art. You probably already know what it is because, by definition, it is popular. (Hint: in case you weren’t sure, the “pop” in Pop Art does in fact stand for popular.) And if I were to ask you to name a famous Pop artist, you would almost always say Andy Warhol. This is because Pop Art gets its potency by utilizing things in our culture that are already popular or recognizable, and Andy Warhol was a master of marketing. But Warhol was not the first on the scene.

We tend to associate Pop Art with the 1960s, especially in the United States. But that’s silly, because it started in the 1950s in the UK. Pop Art actually grew out of Dadaism, borrowing from their ready made items (see last week’s Duchamp post) and collages. One of the first pieces considered Pop Art was a collage by British artist Richard Hamilton. The picture includes company logos, a pin up girl and a body builder. The kinds of work that followed also took inspiration from movie stars, political figures, comic strips, flags, common household goods, even numbers and letters!
This is why this Pop Art movement became so big. Artists were capitalizing on things people already liked. Andy Warhol was especially good at marketing culture as Art, using soup cans and Marilyn Monroe for his prints. His wild personality helped to build his fame as well.
So there you have it! Pop Art was destined to be big just because of where it came from. If you have any interest in finding Pop artists besides Warhol, check out Tom Wesselman, Jasper Johns, Claes Oldenburg, Jim Dine and Roy Liechtenstein to get started!
(Marilyn by Andy Warhol)

Why That Famous Stuff Is Famous Part 4: Fountain

Even if you don’t know the name Marcel Duchamp, you probably know Fountain. It’s this amazing piece of sculpture carved from a solid block of marble that took years… oh no wait… no no, I’m sorry, it’s a urinal. An ordinary urinal, turned on its side and signed with a fake name.

I’m sure it’s not difficult for you to figure out why this is famous. It’s shocking. It’s controversial. It’s… a URINAL. At the time, Marcel Duchamp was a part of something called Dadaism. The people involved in the creation of Dada were responding directly to WWI. They were rebelling against the reason and logic that had lead to “this world of mutual destruction”. They were also rebelling against the traditional notions of what Art should be, seeing it instead as a lens through which we can view and criticize our society and our world.

So in 1917, with Dada as a basis of thought, Duchamp decided to enter an exhibit with this piece of Art that challenges the very notion of Art itself. At the time, Duchamp was a board member for the Society of Independent Artists in New York City. The Society put on an exhibit which advertised that they would display any piece of Art as long as the artist paid the fee. Despite that, the exhibition committee rejected Fountain. Their basis for rejection was that this was not Art at all. Marcel Duchamp promptly resigned in protest.

Shortly after this incident, the New York group of Dadaists responded to the rejection of Fountain. They wrote essays and editorials for their magazine The Blind Man in defense of Fountain. One anonymous editorial stated, “Whether Mr. Mutt made the fountain with his own hands or not has no importance. He CHOSE it.” That choice ended up creating a shift in the Art world from technical skill towards more conceptually focused Art. (What is the underlying meaning of a piece of Art, regardless of what it’s made of or how it is displayed?) This led to the use of ready made items as Art, the tremendously popular Pop Art movement and the advent of performance as Art.

I’ll be the first to admit that Marcel Duchamp is not my favorite artist and Fountain is not my favorite piece of Art. Still, as someone who is aware of the many directions that Art has taken and the things that have led us here, I can’t deny the importance of this controversial sculpture and the place it has in history.

Fountain went on to inspire people like Andy Warhol, who used soup cans, Brillo boxes and bananas in their work, basically building their own fame on the idea that anything can be Art. It allows the artist to be more than just a duplication machine, cranking out landscapes and portraits one after the other. As creative people we can experiment and even strive to say something through the display of objects and images. We can impact politics and philosophy. We can affect change. And all because Marcel Duchamp challenged the boundaries of the acceptable by turning a urinal on its back and calling it Fountain.

Why That Famous Stuff Is Famous Part 3: Vincent van Gogh

If you’re a normal human being, you’ve been waiting to see if I would write one of these “famous” posts on Vincent van Gogh. Because everyone likes Vincent van Gogh. If you’ve ever been to a museum you like Vincent van Gogh. If you’ve seen that episode of Doctor Who (Yeah, you know what I’m talking about… THAT episode.) you like Vincent van Gogh. Some of you may have had a poster of “Starry Night” hanging in your dorm room. (I myself had it on a mouse pad). Even the jaded Art student that publicly claims that there’s nothing special about him… even they like van Gogh.

In my case, Vincent van Gogh was my first Art love. I still have a special place in my heart for him. In high school I wrote a 12 page research paper on him. In high school, I saw my first van Gogh painting in person at the Cleveland Museum of Art. In college, I had the amazing privilege to travel to Paris, visit the Musee d’Orsay, and walk into an entire room full of van Gogh paintings. To this day he remains both familiar and mysterious to me.

So, the basics. Vincent van Gogh was Dutch. He wanted to be a pastor, but as it happened he was very bad at it, so he became an artist instead. (A perfectly valid and logical next step, in my opinion.) He moved to France, because that was where all the Art was happening. He made some artist friends. He got into the bohemian scene and drank absinthe. He made about 2,000 paintings, drawings and sketches in a decade or so. And then he died.

During his life, his artwork was only known to a select few. His brother Theo supported him financially, but never sold any of Vincent’s paintings. In his last two years, Vincent did start to exhibit his work, getting some positive recognition in places like Paris and Brussels. Despite the notice people took, he still only sold one painting during his life. Eventually, his mental and emotional troubles started catching up with him. His brother was having difficulties with his job and he himself was depressed. On July 27, 1890, Vincent van Gogh arrived home with a bullet wound to the stomach. On July 29 he died.

(It has been commonly accepted that Vincent van Gogh committed suicide by shooting himself in the stomach while out for a walk. In recent years, a new argument has been made that he did not kill himself, but was shot by some young boys in town by accident. There is convincing evidence for both theories. If you’re curious, I would suggest doing a little research to help you come to your own conclusions.)

When Vincent van Gogh died, his brother Theo inherited all of his work. Vincent’s paintings were getting more notice, and several memorial exhibitions of his work were being displayed. Unfortunately, Theo was never able to fully enjoy this inheritance. Six months after Vincent’s death, Theo van Gogh died. (One doctor said he died of sadness.) Theo’s widow Jo was able to sell all of Vincent’s accumulated work which is now spread all over the world in museums and private collections.

So there you have it. Van Gogh is famous because he died. Ok, not just that though. Truth be told, his paintings express much more than just paint and color. There is depth and emotion conveyed through every single one, but especially in his portraits. The one I’ve shown here is one of my favorites and is on display at the Art Institute of Chicago. The fact that his first exhibitions captured the attention of critics is a sign that his work was appreciated before his death. I think he still would have been known if he had lived a full and uneventful life, but because of his well-known mental struggles and very sudden death, he drew the attention of the world and became everyone’s favorite artist.

(Self-Portrait by Vincent van Gogh, 1887)

Why That Famous Stuff Is Famous Part 2: Impressionism

French Impressionist Art is incredibly popular. Most people would recognize it the minute they walked into a gallery or a museum. The problem I’m going to have here is that while it is popular, it is also very diverse. Hopefully though, I can provide a basic idea of what it was, why it was so influential and why it continues to be a huge favorite.

In France in the 1870s, there was one right way to make Art and one right place to exhibit. The subject matter was limited and there were many many rules. There was a proper and traditional way to portray a nude or a story from mythology and a proper technical method in carrying it all out. In the end, if you made a piece of Art and you wanted to show it, you had to submit it to the government (aka Napoleon) sponsored Salons and hope it didn’t get rejected.

In 1874, a group of people, fed up with the regulations and rejection, rented out a hall and displayed their work themselves. This was the beginning of the Impressionists.

Impressionism is all about the eye and the way light and color interact with it. A true Impressionist artist painted outside often, focused on landscapes, light and color, and never used black paint. Impressionist paintings also usually don’t have much deep meaning because it places the highest importance on the beauty of it.  However, there is so much diversity within the movement that these rules were sometimes broken.

French Impressionism produced several important artists, each making their own individual mark. The most recognizable of them all was Claude Monet.

Monet was probably the most true to the artistic ideals of Impressionism. After all, the term “Impressionists” was coined from the title of one of his paintings. (The painting I’ve chosen for this post.) By focusing on the interaction of light and color, Monet’s work is what really ended up defining the style most associated with this movement. He never used black, he painted en plain air (which just means outside) and he focused on landscape and scenery rather than people. Thanks to the recent invention of paint in tubes, it was easy for the Impressionists to get outside and paint from life, and Monet took full advantage. He often painted multiple versions of the same scene at different times of day or different times of the year to show the changes in lighting.

Édouard Manet, on the other hand, broke all the rules of Impressionism. His paintings focused primarily on people. His work used black paint heavily. His subject matter was mostly religious or made strong social statements. Despite the fact that Manet’s style leaned toward realism, it had a gestural quality to it. (By gestural, I mean it almost looks like a sketch, kinda scribbly.) Most people at the Salons would have probably considered his work unfinished. In his more socially charged work, he confronted the viewer with the steady unashamed gazes of confident looking women rather than the demure modesty that was more traditionally displayed. To us, Manet’s work doesn’t seem like it would be a big deal, but at that time these paintings were positively offensive. Still, despite the differences Manet exhibited with the Impressionists several times, and even started painting more outdoors after getting some encouragement from his sister-in-law and fellow Impressionist Berthe Morisot.

So why it’s famous… in my opinion, it’s a little bit about subversive rebellion and a lot about looks. No matter what the style, this stuff is just downright nice to look at. These artists made a point of using pleasing color combinations and the strategic use of light. It was all about beauty, and that’s exactly why it’s famous.

(Image is “Impression, Soleil Levant”, painted by Claude Monet in 1872)

Enjoying Art You Don’t Understand

I cannot even begin to count the number of times I’ve had friends and acquaintances question me about Art, using phrases like “what does that mean?” “what is that supposed to be?” and probably most often “I just don’t get it”. This generally corresponds to some ancient, abstract or avant garde piece of Art they saw on a school trip to a museum. Becoming frustrated by some Greek urn or a piece of string hanging from the ceiling, they simply throw up their hands in defeat, determining that this must mean that they just don’t like Art and therefore have no need of things like museums and galleries. And really, they think to themselves, what does it matter? It’s not like I’m missing out on anything.

As for me, I’ve always loved Art. It doesn’t much matter what kind or what era. I can spend hours wandering through museums. When faced with these kinds of comments from friends that are less artistically inclined, I have one response. Does it really matter?

Don’t get me wrong, fellow Art lovers, the more information you have about a piece of Art and the artist that made it, the more you can learn from it. But learning about Art is not a prerequisite for enjoying it.

Think of it this way. Looking at a piece of Art is like having a conversation. You may have an argument with it. You may find that you have loads in common. You may be bored to tears. Don’t feel like you need to rationalize any of the things you feel about it. Just feel them. Like it or don’t. Don’t worry so much about what it means, just determine what it means to you and be done with it.

There doesn’t need to be so much pressure surrounding this Art culture. Take the museums back from the snobs and the academics. Take a piece for yourself and own it.

(Image contains Neuron by Roxie Paine and Scarlatti by Mark di Suvero, both on display at Frederick Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park in Grand Rapids, Michigan.)