ArtPrize from the view of middle schoolers

What gorgeous weather Grand Rapids has had this year for ArtPrize. September is quite often our most enjoyable month, but all of this sunshine and warmth must be great for downtown venues and vendors - and tourists!

While the adults in our family have been to ArtPrize once or not at all, our fifth grader has been three times: once with his school class, once with friends, and once with his mother. He tells me that he doesn't need to see this much art, but it is still fun to view this huge event through his eyes.

One of the interesting things I realized when I was driving downtown with him was that even though this is only the sixth time ArtPrize has been held, he doesn't remember Grand Rapids before this event. Nor does he remember a time when people had to take cameras or just view large spectacles like this and try to remember them. In his mind there have always been iPods and smartphones and people have always been whipping them out whenever anything moved or even twitched.

When he came home after his class trip, I asked him what he liked best, and he had no comment. Browsing the photos taken on my camera, I noted that half of them were pictures taken of his friends in goofy poses. There was some art - a stained glass church window, a large painting with a cow, but any greater meaning or vision the art on display held seems to have largely passed him by.

I encouraged his friend and him to tell me what they saw. Here is conversation the had:

Friend: "Some of the exhibits were completely inappropriate."
My son: "There were a bunch of naked people."
Friend: "Well, naked women. I think the guys had underwear on."
My son: "No, they didn't."
Friend: "Yeah, they did.
My son: "They didn't have underwear on."
Friend: "And one of them - her boobs were all saggy. It was totally disgusting."
Son: "It was gross."
Friend: "I don't know what those artists were thinking!"

According to both of them, the men in bunny suits in the river piece was "Messed up!" When I told them it was a self-portrait, they just looked at me funny.

My son really wanted to take a selfie with the penguin statue next to the horse made out of old mechanical parts, though. And both boys were impressed by Dominic Pangborn's 3-D Michigan in Motion. We looked at that one for awhile from all of the different angles.

They collected the cards from the artists too and tried to decide which cards were more better and more tradable: "This one has +5 attack damage." "This is a get out of jail free card!" And they went back to the #U piece to get the temporary #U tattoo.

It would appear, then, that whether you like or appreciate art, people watching, walking around downtown Grand Rapids in September, or none of these, ArtPrize still may have something enjoyable to offer.

Grand Rapids gears up for Artprize 2014

Downtown things are starting to gear up - for ArtPrize, that is. ArtPrize is Grand Rapids’s annual art competition; it draws artists from across the globe to compete for the votes of everyday viewers and participants. A total of $560,000 in prize money will be given out to the winners, and half of that is determined by popular vote. ArtPrize will run this year from September 24 until October 12.

Local restaurants and hotels are preparing for far more business than usual. ArtPrize 2013 generated $22.2 million in new economic activity, and the city and its entrepreneurs would love a repeat or increase in revenues for this sixth Artprize festival. It’s the nation’s largest public art competition, and an estimated 300,000 people will be on hand to participate in choosing 2014’s most popular art. The income and jobs created by this event are impressive objectively, but for workers in Michigan, long plagued with unemployment woes, they’re even more appreciated. Rick DeVos deserves a lot of credit for the long term value this open air art festival imparts to the city. Much of the art on display is also for sale, which helps local artists get noticed and connected with their audience.

This week Artprize announced the locations and services available at its hospitality spaces. The one open to the general public will be located at 41 Sheldon Blvd. Here people will be able to register to vote in Artprize, ask for general assistance, purchase ArtPrize merchandise, and view previous winning entries. The other location will be for the media, the artists, and other credentialed visitors.

ArtPrize will also be releasing apps for Apple and Android on September 22. These will allow ArtPrize participants to share their opinions and experiences and better navigate the busy downtown display areas.

Already some of this year’s 1,536 entrants have begun the process of packing and shipping their work to the city, installing, or creating their art in situ as Kevin Sudeith is with his carvings of native Grand River fishes on field stone near the public museum. Grand Rapids, already peppered with murals and former art installations, will soon be as decorated as a Christmas tree again, and people from all over the city, the state, the United States, and the world will arrive to behold it.

This is a win-win for all comers: artists, restaurateurs, businessmen, festival goers, schoolchildren, and city officials. The American Bus Association just named ArtPrize a Top 100 Best Event for 2015, and it has made numerous other lists over the past few years. Will you be there this year?

Do You Really Want to Ask Me What I Think About Festival?

If you live in Grand Rapids, you probably went to Festival of the Arts this weekend—if you didn't, you at least know of the event. Colloquially known as Festival, the occasion is meant to generate support for the arts and has been attempting to do so for more than four decades. According to organizers, the event brings hundreds of thousands of people downtown each year so that the artists of West Michigan can be showcased. But in recent years, it seems that the celebration originally intended to honor the installation of Alexander Calder's La Grand Vitesse (you know it: that big, red piece of metalwork in the government district) has devolved into rampant gluttony, cheap entertainment, and overly priced artwork.

A very close friend said that I should start this piece off with the following sentence: "Approaching the Festival of the Arts, you are immediately greeted by a pungent odor that can only be created by flash-cooking cheap sausage, the startling howl of overly passionate cover bands, and the heedless caterwaul of incompetent children as they wander the streets like lost drunkards." Her poetic diatribe is remarkably accurate, so accurate in fact that my critique—oh yes, this most certainly is a critique—is basically an extension of the words she shared with me.

Food, Food, and More Food (But Was It Any Good?)

As I first turned onto Ottawa Avenue, I was bombarded by a section of grills filled to the brim with meat: not a rare sight at Festival. The accompanying smoke sent the scent of seared flesh and grease into the air. To some this may sound enticing, even to me on occasion, but if you find this disgusting, you should have options. With more than two dozen food booths, one would think that there would be sustenance for everyone, particularly for those that call themselves what I call myself: a vegetarian. But one would be mistaken: Only two of the 26 booths were listed as vegetarian-friendly and even then, the pickings were slim. Trust me, being a vegetarian does not mean that one does not love food: I live for food and have been known to inhale anything delicious (yes, kids, vegetables can be delicious). Being a vegetarian does mean feeling—and going—hungry at times like this, especially if you don't feel like eating egg rolls, deep-fried cream cheese, or something sweetened to the point that your teeth begin to conspire against you.

Instead of gorging ourselves at Festival like so many others, my friends and I chose to avoid the booths, probably because there are a number of truly great establishments providing nourishment to the residents of Grand Rapids. Despite this fact, not one of the booths was ran by a group directly associating itself with any sort of cookery. As has been in the past, the food was prepared by a random concoction of individuals, volunteers from whatever organization that ran each booth. Of course, not all of these groups know what they're doing when it comes to food, they're just trying to raise money for their various causes, and because of this, things can get a little less than kosher. For instance, a clearly non-Hispanic church serving Mexican food last year had its entire crew dressed in sombreros and ponchos, debatably tinging the festivities (and their food) with a dash of racism. But few festival-goers have the sense to be bothered by such things, instead busy with the many prevalent distractions.

When Did a Free Art Festival Get So Expensive?

Those distractions included places for children and adults to glue and paint, a pop-up printmaking studio, a sidewalk to cover in chalk, and six stages for bands and dance academies to show their stuff. While a quote from Festival's website said that “all performances and activities [were] free” (and the aforementioned items were just that), I had every chance to empty my wallet into the hands of others. The food vendors were bad, but the art vendors were even worse, asking for excessive amounts of money for products I had seen (and purchased) on the Internet for a third of the price.

With all the hustle and bustle, I had no idea that the UICA hosted a regional arts exhibition while the GRAM highlighted young creatives. This was where artists were most likely to be showcased, this was where Festival was hopefully living up to its name and history. But I was robbed of seeing either of these with my own eyes, victimized by the chaotic diversions that now sadly overshadow the original intentions of Festival. Instead, I was surrounded by incessancy, largely in the form of parents dragging children from station to station while sampling food along the way, keeping the kids entertained with glue and balloon animals.

Give Me Art or Give Me Death

Honestly, the whole event felt tired and obnoxiously familiar: seems that if you've been to one Festival over the past few years, you've been to them all. It's safe to say that little has changed from year to year, some food vendors even being located in the exact same location as previous iterations. It's sad to see the potential of Festival turn to stale waste—I wish I knew how to fix it, but like so many other naysayers, I don't have a cogent answer. Maybe we can blame ArtPrize for the straying of Festival's spotlight from art (we blame it for enough, especially when it's happening). Or maybe we can just chalk it up to another situation where I just didn't have enough discretion to sort the gems hiding within the cacophony from the rest of the mess. But for all I know, the art exhibitions may not have been gems at all. It's too late to find out now.

--Matt Knaack lives in Grand Rapids and occasionally blogs for AMN.