Art Prize 2011

I've posted the last few years about ArtPrize. It's an art competition held in Grand Rapids, where art is displayed all over the city. The public gets to vote for the winners, although there are some jurried prizes as well.
This year over 1500 artists came from all over the United States as well as 39 other countries (the farthest away was Australia) to display their art. There were more than 382,000 votes cast and over 500,000 people came to look at that art in the 2 1/2 weeks it was displayed.
The art is so varied. Some is small, others are huge, some are gorgeous, others are just plain strange. There are things that amaze you and things that don't appear to be art at all.
I went and walked around Grand Rapids twice and didn't begin to see everything. I went once with my sisters, and a few weeks later with Bob. It's always fun!
Here are a bunch of pictures, showing you the winners and some of the other pieces.

This is the flags of all nations, put into one banner. The art people didn't appreciate it, because of the religious content. I thought it was great!

This one was really neat because it was made of sequins. The picture on the right is a close up of her chin. You can see each individual sequin pinned on.

The blue bridge is well known in Grand Rapids. During ArtPrize, it was filled with metal monkeys.

Some of the statues I saw around town. The one on the right is a huge wood carving.

These cute little old ladies made everyone that saw them smile. They are paper mache and are called Women of the Word. One was reading the Bible and the other a magazine.
Terri, myself and Cheri thought we should get a picture with them!

I can't begin to tell you about all of these so I'm just including them in collages.


And now for the top ten:

On the left is Ocean Exodus. It's hard to see in a picture, but it's a huge piece of driftwood, carved into an octopus in the middle and other ocean creatures around it. It's amazing how he used the shape of what was there and worked with it. Top right: Construction. The character on the right is not real, the one on the left is a live statue. It was incredible how still he could be. Bottom right: The Tempest. This is another one that doesn't show well in pictures It's layers of very intricately cut paper.

Left: President Ford visits ArtPrize. He was from Grand Rapids so this one won peoples hearts. It's made of fiberglass and resin and looks amazingly real. Top right: Rusty. This dog was 12 feet tall and was made from recycled parts. For example the metal pieces on his collar are hubcaps. The kids loved him! Bottom Right: Mantis Dreaming. This is another huge piece, made of recycled metal. It's a praying mantis with a butterfly on it's front leg.

This is one of my favorites. It's called Grizzlies on the Ford. These carved grizzlies are playing and fishing in the fountain in front of the Ford presidential museum. They looked pretty natural there.

This is the third place winner. It's called Rain. It's made of silver leaf on polyester film, suspended by a filament string. It was pretty neat to see in person.
The 3rd place prize was $50,000.

This is the second prize winner, and the prize was $100,000. It covers the side of a large building. This artist did the side of our Children's Museum a few years ago and it's nice to see both that building and this one beautifying the city!



The first prize winner is titled Crucifixion. It's a stained glass mosaic piece that measures 13 foot by 9 foot. The prize for first place is $250,000!

Here is a close up so you can see the mosaic detail.

And here is the whole piece. It was beautiful to see in person. It almost looked like it was lit up, because of the way the sunset on the mosaic glowed. It was an incredible piece!

ArtPrize has been taking place for 3 years and every year more people come to walk through the city and see the art. It's one of the main topics of conversation for the people that live around here while it's going on.
I'm already excited to see what next year will bring!