Thoughts on ArtPrize

ArtPrize is an interesting competition being help in Grand Rapids, MI. The general idea is that artists can submit ideas for temporary art installations and Grand Rapid businesses can submit their space as venues. The venues and artists link up over the internet and a show is born. During the run of the show (Sept 23, 2009 - October 10, 2009) the public can vote on which artworks they like best (and give negative votes to ones they do not like)... the most popular artwork wins $250k.

Kevin Buist, the Director of Artist Relations for ArtPrize, wrote an Art21 Blog column about ArtPrize last week. There were two main threads of criticism:

1. The fact that ArtPrize charges submission fees (most of the criticism regarding this came from me)
2. The fact that ArtPrize is won by popular vote (most of this criticism came from Richard Kooyman)

Personally, I'm not too bothered by the popular vote... Will the best artwork win? Probably not. But I think the format of the competition (which has been compared to reality shows such as So You Think You Can Dance) may help spark interest in contemporary art. One of the sad things about art is that there is a wall of learning that stands between the general public and an understanding/appreciation of what contemporary art is about. I think Art Prize is an admirable attempt to get people thinking about art.

Kooyman's concern might be summed up in these comments from him:

I would agree that the model of change you suggest in “decentralized curation”, where even a bar owner can curate a selection of Art work to exhibit is change, but I don’t see that as innovation. That’s simply stripping any sense of professionalism and expertise from “the largest art competition in the world” and replacing it with a populism which might be fun for the venue owners but certainly won’t gain AP any credibility for innovation. “American Idol” may be a fun program (for a while) for people to watch but it’s hardly a professional way to pick talent.

and

I’m suggesting you have intentionally engineered a Art competition where you in fact want to replace the issue of professionall quality in Art with a mainstream populism.

I think Kooyman is right, but it doesn't really bother me. Given that almost every art show worth talking about is curated with an attempt at professionalism and expertise, I think it's fine (even desirable) to have a show that takes another approach. I do not think that ArtPrize puts curatorial expertise in jeopardy.

My issue is that ArtPrize requires a $50 submission fee from artists and a $100 fee from venues. Here's what I said about that:

I think the entrance fee puts the event in an unflattering category. Generally fee-based exhibitions are a form of fund-raising for marginal art galleries/organizations. Many artists will categorically not submit work to such exhibitions.

My suggestion for next year would be to do away with the entrance fee. It is better to have smaller prizes, but attract more entries.

That was countered with an argument that smaller prizes would ruin the point of the competition (i.e., that at $250k it is the "largest art prize in the world").

But the prize only attracted "hundreds of artists from around the world" to create profiles... the first step in the submission process [and many of those creating profiles probably did not actually finish their submission]. That's actually a pretty small number of submissions. Even if there were 1,000 artist submission fees paid, that would only generate $25k $50k in revenue. The revenue from the venue submission fee probably isn't over $20k, so we're talking about the fees generating around $50k $70k. I think it's worth eliminating those fees and have a $200k $180k prize instead of $250k (it's still an impressive amount of money).

Visit Art21 to see the entire discussion