ArtPrize

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Michigan and a Grand Rapids-based organization are planning to file a formal complaint of discrimination against Peter Meijer, who is currently running as a Republican candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in Michigan's 3rd Congressional District.

The Grand Rapids Art Prize festival will no longer be an annual event after this fall.  

In 2019 and every alternating year afterward, there will be a citywide art project – or "Project 1" as organizers are calling it – during the time the festival would take place.

The tenth annual ArtPrize event will be this fall from September 19 to October 7.  The eleventh festival will be in fall 2020.

Organizers did not make it clear why the changes were made, but Project 1 will include free arts and culture programming that are open to the community.

Downtown Grand Rapids will surely be less busy now that the ninth annual Grand Rapids ArtPrize competition is over.

Artists from all over the world come to West Michigan to share their art. But only two artists each year are grand prize winners.

Both Seitu Jones and Richard Schlatter will take home $200,000 for their pieces "The Heartside Community Meal" and "A. Lincoln," respectively. 

Art is supposed to have a message – at least that's what several folks attending the annual Grand Rapids ArtPrize festival are saying.

The ninth annual ArtPrize festival officially starts today in downtown Grand Rapids. There are exhibits in more than 170 venues throughout the downtown area.

Several of the exhibits have politically charged messages at this year's open art competition.

One such piece,"Immeasurable Numbness" by Rachel Nanzer, illustrates the polarizing messages of "Black Lives Matter" and "All Lives Matter."

A team of eight community partners, including Grand Rapids Public Schools, health providers, and artistic groups are working together on a big project in Grand Rapids’ Roosevelt Park neighborhood.

The group of organizations, along with help from the Roosevelt Park Neighborhood Association, are taking five acres of blighted properties and transforming them into new mixed-income homes and apartments, a public high school, and a community center.

A collection of carved wooden dogs received the most votes in this year’s ArtPrize. James Mellick, a craftsman from Ohio, takes home $200,000 for Wounded Warrior Dogs.

According to the artists’ statement, Mellick hopes the installation at the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel raises awareness of wounded veterans.

This year ArtPrize is changing some of the rules.

Regular people who visit the annual art competition in Grand Rapids help pick the winners; it’s what makes ArtPrize different from other, juried competitions.

For the second time, Ann Loveless of Frankfort, Michigan has won the top prize at Grand Rapids' annual ArtPrize competition.

This year, she had some help.

The 7th annual ArtPrize competition wraps up in Grand Rapids this weekend, and tonight the winners will be announced.

At stake are two separate $200,000 grand prizes. 

One winner be selected by a panel of art experts, and the other will be decided by public vote.

Art Prize organizers say there were over 1,550 entries in this year’s competition. 

A major art show opens in Grand Rapids on Friday.

The DisArt festival features the work of roughly 50 disabled artists, film makers and others. 

“What the whole festival is doing is flipping our expectations of disability on its head,” says festival director Christopher Smit. 

If you really, really love history – of if you really, really love Ludington – then having a 19-day event called "History Prize" in the Lake Michigan town of 8,000 sounded like a great idea.  

For less ardent fans, however, the concept of three weeks of exhibits, collections, and "living history" tours put on by historians competing for cash prizes may have been less than thrilling. 

Either way, it's not happening now. At least, not in Ludington.

ArtPrize, the big art competition in Grand Rapids, announced Thursday it’ll debut in Dallas in 2016.

But the real news isn’t Dallas so much. It’s that there’s talk of even more competitions in cities across the country. And it means that ArtPrize in Grand Rapids will make money from licensing the brand to those cities.

In ArtPrize, the public votes for the winner. Juried prizes are awarded too. Those juried prizes have been getting bigger each year. Winners get cash. More than $500,000 was awarded to the winners this fall.

You may have heard of ArtPrize. It’s an art competition in Grand Rapids where hundreds of thousands of tourists flock every fall to vote for their favorite art.

ArtPrize’s founder wanted to start a public conversation about art. History Prize founder Mara MacKay wants to start a conversation about history.

“History is a social common denominator for all of us,” MacKay said. “Our endeavor is really to help with an artistic expression and provide the opportunities to remember and articulate the past.”

A single artist captivated both the public and art experts at this year’s ArtPrize competition. 

For the first time, a single artist has won both the juried and public grand prizes at ArtPrize in Grand Rapids.

Born in Pakistan, Anila Quayyum Agha teaches art at the Herron School of Art and Design at Indiana University, in Indianapolis.   Her work “intersections” consists of a six-foot cube, illuminated from within, projecting complex designs of light and shadow around a room. The effect envelops the room and all the people in it.

After 11 days of public voting, 20 finalists out of 1,536 entries have been selected for the ArtPrize grand prize of $200,000.

So far, over 37,000 people have cast votes in four categories: two dimensional, three-dimensional, time-based and installation artwork.

According to Christian Gaines, ArtPrize executive director, this public involvement is important to giving ArtPrize its societal relevance. 

The annual ArtPrize competition is moving into its final phase in Grand Rapids. 

Organizers have announced the top 20 finalists in the public voting for the $200,000 grand prize. 

Dominic Pangborn of Grosse Pointe is one of the finalists. He says he’s enjoyed meeting with the people visiting ArtPrize this year.

The streets of Grand Rapids are alive today as ArtPrize gets underway.

More than 1,500 works of art are in competition for more than a half-million dollars in prize money.

Christian Gaines is ArtPrize’s executive director. He says they’ve revamped the competition to let the public and art experts pick the top 20 pieces.

Art Prize will once again take over the streets of Grand Rapids starting on Wednesday.

The annual art extravaganza known as Art Prize is in its sixth year.

Nearly two thousand artists have created more than 1500 works of art for the competition. There’s more than a half million dollars in prize money on the line during the 19 day art festival.

By the time Art Prize comes to a close in mid-October about 400,000 people are expected to visit the 174 art venues around town.

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) - Figures that appear to be holding guns and binoculars stand sentry on a downtown Grand Rapids rooftop.

They are a statement of art, not a call to arms.

The Grand Rapids Press reports  Saturday that crews have been installing "...there's something happening here..." on the roof and terrace of the Urban Institute of Contemporary Arts. The work is Henry Brimmer's fourth entry in Michigan's annual ArtPrize competition, which opens Sept. 24.

ArtPrize, the annual art competition in Grand Rapids, will still award $560,000 this year, but professional jurors will now have a bigger say in who gets the money.

The people who visit ArtPrize and register to vote have always decided the winner. But this year there will be two top prizes, each worth $200,000. One will go to the top vote-getter. The other winner will be decided by three art jurors.

Dana Friis-Hansen heads the Grand Rapids Arts Museum. He thinks the change will attract more professional artists to ArtPrize.

Update 11:15 p.m.

A giant quilt depicting the Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore won the top prize in the Grand Rapids-based ArtPrize competition Friday night.

Ann Loveless, of Frankfort Michigan, made the quilt.

Past ArtPrize winners have included paintings, pencil drawings, and mosaics. This year’s is a super detailed quilt that looks like a photo of a fabulous sunset at the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. It’s 20 feet wide and 5 feet tall.