ArtPrize v. Festival: Is there a difference?

Last night while walk­ing through The Old Fed­eral Build­ing,  Fes­ti­val of the Arts came up. For those not from River City, it’s our annual 3 day event fea­tur­ing the best local Art, Music, Film and food in the West Michi­gan 7 county region. The first Fes­ti­val began in 1969, the year we installed Le Grande Vitesse. The icon at left was cre­ated by Calder for that event. A line has been drawn from 1969 to now. After this first week of After this first week of Art­Prize is there an inter­sec­tion of intent?

From the Fes­ti­val website:

Always held the first full week­end in June in down­town Grand Rapids, Fes­ti­val of the Arts is a com­mu­nity cel­e­bra­tion fea­tur­ing arts, enter­tain­ment, food and fun activ­i­ties for the entire fam­ily. All per­for­mances, exhibits and activ­i­ties are free, thanks to gen­er­ous dona­tions by local orga­ni­za­tions, com­pa­nies and individuals.

Now Art­Prize:

At Art­Prize, any artist—from estab­lished to emerging—has the chance to show work. Any vis­i­tor can vote. The vote will decide who wins the largest art prize in the world. We also took the unusual step to allow peo­ple in the city to open a venue and choose the artists to show in their space. There is not one offi­cial cura­tor or jury for the competition.

On the face of they sound very dif­fer­ent. But are they?

This past week, crowds in the 10′s of thou­sands walked biked, bussed and trol­lied through­out the 3 square mile Art­Prize dis­trict to look at art, eat food, take in the day. This past June, 10′s of Thou­sands of peo­ple walked around down­town to look at art, Lis­ten to music, eat food, take in the day.

Art­Prize has a $250K people’s choice award. Festival’s is only $500. Both events had over a thou­sand entries. Both get peo­ple talk­ing about Art.

The selec­tion process of Fes­ti­val is more rig­or­ous on the one hand with only a third of its entries being cho­sen for the exhibit.  Although very local in fla­vor, the over­all qual­ity offers a decent sense of the ‘best of the region’ by  those peo­ple who love to make work be they are paid or not.

What I saw this past week in Art­Prize, was that the bad are very bad and the good are very good. Of the very good works cre­ated else­where, they help expand the local sense of what is Art. I also saw that many local artists can hold their own against national work.The sad part is much of it is rarely seen locally, except in the clas­sic gallery set­ting. Will the Art­Prize pub­lic con­tinue to step out for that after next week? They say it is part of their mis­sion to pro­mote an ongo­ing dia­logue about Art. We shall see.

When I was a boy, my fam­ily would go to Fes­ti­val and I would always go to the Visual Arts and Film com­pe­ti­tions first. I spent hours walk­ing the halls of art and espe­cially watch­ing short films. Often return­ing many times; amazed that some­one I might know could make a movie and show it to other peo­ple. Now as an adult, I work as a cre­ative pro­fes­sional, I write, I sup­port the cre­ative endeav­ors of my wife and two boys. I can draw a line from Fes­ti­val to now. Will my sons be able to say that about Art­Prize? We shall see.

A lot of the local Art pro­fes­sion­als like to grum­ble about the cal­iber of work in Fes­ti­val. Same goes for Art­Prize. I don’t dis­agree. I have real issues with both but I still go, fam­ily in tow and find value in both. If you are going to live here and make here, then step up and own Fes­ti­val, own Art­Prize, own this town. Don’t sing pub­lic virtues of Art­Prize and grum­ble in the com­fort of friends. If you don’t like some­thing point it out, offer a solu­tion. Also make sure to give praise when it’s due.

The gen­eral pub­lic often remarks they don’t always under­stand Mod­ern Art. Or they may say ‘I could do that.’ And that clas­sic: ‘Art is in the eye of the beholder.’ Not good enough. There are some great works out there but please, do your home­work. Crack a book, rent a video, google an artist, attend some of the great lec­tures that UICA, ActiveSite and other venues are host­ing this week and next. Own your vote by being informed.

Tomor­row night, Fri­day 10/2, UICA is host­ing a dis­cus­sion on the Art­Prize Top 10. 7–9 PM. Come out and step up.