Competition to commission: How the new ArtPrize cadence opens new opportunities
The new ArtPrize calendar has its now-biennial competition taking turns with a biennial immersive city-wide public art project. I’m not mad about it.
Driving to my interview with Artistic Director Kevin Buist this afternoon, I thought I had my whole opinion piece written up in my head. I was going to talk about how shifting to a biennial event leaves space to breathe, creating a more sustainable rhythm for artists and venues in the onslaught that is ArtPrize.
I even had my Christmas analogy at the ready, getting as cheesy as to rewrite a bit of that old Christmas song:
It’s the most wonderful time of the (every other) year
There’ll be scary art stories
And tales of the glories of
ArtPrizes long, long ago….
It’s the most…wonderful time…of the year.
As you can tell by my Christmas comparisons, I’m a fan. I’ve always been a fan.
From the moment ArtPrize was announced, I’ve crooned at the possibilities of getting people who don’t usually set foot in museums to experience art. I’ve loved the voice that “normal people” were given about awards for art. I loved when national experts were brought in as jurors to add their perspective to the public’s. I’ve relished my son growing up with an event centered around ART, of all things people, being the biggest event of the year. I’ve bragged about living in a city where everyone talks about art, my favorite subject, for three weeks straight. I’m looking forward to the next generation’s attitudes towards the arts after being immersed in a city that has ArtPrize every fall.
I’ve been involved with ArtPrize as an artist, curator, venue manager, employee, and (for the last seven years) media. I’ve been called an ArtPrize historian, a cheerleader, accused of having drunk the kool-aid… sometimes affectionately, sometimes not. It’s okay. I’m not a blind fan, excusing away politics or board representation or areas for improvement. I’ve been disappointed in individual decisions over time. But the event itself? And the work that the staff does to meet their purpose?
“It’s always been about helping audiences to explore contemporary art and expanding people’s notions about what art can do and about what that means for just being alive, being human,” says Buist. That purpose for an art event? I’m a fan.
This isn’t the first time the organization has shifted and responded to concerns. ArtPrize has always been billed as an “experiment,” and thanks to the entrepreneurial spirit here in Grand Rapids, they’ve been able to be an ever-evolving organization bent on upending the art world and providing crazy experiences in the arts for our community.
And anyway, haters gonna hate, and all that.
So I thought I knew, going into this conversation with Buist, what I’d already want to say about yesterday’s news.
(Always a bad attitude for a journalist to have. You go to *find* the story, not prove your own bias.)
It was about minute 6 in the interview when I realized I had it all wrong. This new shift wasn’t going to be a break in the excitement—not for me as media, not for ArtPrize staff, and not for all the families that come down to experience contemporary art every fall. It might be a break in competition and a (welcome) break in the toll on energy and resources for venues and artists. But there would be no pause in art.
Driving away from the interview, I told Siri to dial my mother’s number.
“Well, they gave me some new kool-aid to drink,” I laughed.
That new kool-aid — the new excitement — was less about the healthier cadence of a biennial event and more about the Project series, starting with Project 1 in 2019.
Buist explains it as a shift, alternating each year, from competition model to a commission model.
“ArtPrize loads all these resources into these prizes, and those prizes act as an incentive for all this creative activity. And that’s wonderful, and we’re going to continue that,” he says. Currently, there is about $500,000 in prize money alone, plus Pitch Night earnings, artist seed grants, venue grants, and more to support artists directly. This commissioned project model then turns around and invests a similar amount to the prize money into a commissioned project, taking the support of artists not one but many steps further.
Each year’s project could include a single artist, a group of artists working on a single piece as a collective, or a group of artists working on their own similarly-themed works.
“It’s coming out of this question: what happens if you invest that money up front rather than holding it out as an incentive for competition,” Buist says. “And we love that model, but we’re very interested in the back and forth between the two.” Much like the contrast of public and juried awards, this new contrast will bring new conversations and opportunities for both artists and audience — “and at a scale that we can’t currently do.”
Artists haven’t been selected yet for 2019, so Buist says it’s hard to give specifics on what Project 1 will look like. We’ll know more in early 2019.
But here’s what we know now. ArtPrize is seeking projects that will be:
- Mostly outdoors
- Able to encompass multiple sites downtown (or mostly downtown)
- Balancing between spectacular and art historically valuable.
“We want to strike this line between spectacular and photogenic on the one hand,” explains Buist. “But also smart and deliberate and informed and conscious of community, conscious of history, and responsive to place.”
Along with the “immersive city-wide public art project” itself, there will be educational opportunities, events, parties, and all the reasons we come downtown during ArtPrize for three weeks straight—minus the voting.
Buist says — and I have to say I agree with him — that he believes the city is ready for these changes.
“We wouldn’t be able to do what we’re doing now if we hadn’t built up this momentum, and built up this support, and built up this audience” says Buist. “And been a part of helping grow a community that is really primed for really cutting-edge contemporary public art.”
Also significantly absent will be the feeling like whenever we’re looking at one work of art, there are over 1,500 other artworks behind us, vying for our attention, making us feel like we’re racing against the clock to not miss anything.
Buist hopes this new model will give a welcome contrast to that feeling, creating what he calls an “inversion.” For six to eight weeks in contrast to ArtPrize’s three, we’ll be able to slow down and dive deeper into one immersive experience. Well be able to shift from, as Buist explains, from the expansive but fast-moving experience of ArtPrize with all its “beauty and chaos and crazy mish-mash” to focusing in on a deeper exploration, one that will draw national and international artists to participate—and the national and international art world to experience.
That’s the hope, at least. Maybe I did just drink the kool-aid. I don’t know for certain—but I’m not worried. Because I know the past 9 years have been pretty tasty, and I’m willing to take a drink again.
