GRAND RAPIDS, MICH.- ArtPrize, the radically open, international art competition and social experiment, tonight awarded $560,000 in cash prizes to the artists of 16 installations, concluding the 19-day event. Ten awards were decided in an epic, 16-day public voting process, while a panel of internationally renowned arts professionals decided six winners.
The top winners included Adonne Khare from Burbank, Calif. for her large-scale graphite on paper drawing, Elephants, which took the $200,000, publicly decided ArtPrize Award, and Design 99 from Detroit, Mich., for Displacement (13208 Klinger St), a found artifacts installation, which was awarded the first-ever, $100,000 Juried Grand Prize.
With its public voting and juried awards, ArtPrize 2012 explored the tension between the professional and populist in an epic conversation that was its largest to date. 47,160 people cast 412,560 votes in ArtPrize 2012, the largest voter base for an art competition ever. An estimated 400,000 total visitors came to Grand Rapids and experienced the fourth annual competition.
“The only way to discover good ideas is to generate lots of them by lots of people, and the ArtPrize Awards are designed to be a catalyst that help generate thousands of ideas,” said Rick DeVos founder and chairman of ArtPrize. “Our society needs more people to have ideas of all kinds, so we can make better things and make things better.”
Rounding out the top three public vote winners included Martijn van Wagtendonk of Colbert, Ga. for Song of Lift, a kinetic sculpture involving mechanical birds, light and Henryk Górecki Symphony No. 3, "Symphony of Sorrowful Songs;” and Frits Hoendervanger of Detroit, Mich. for his painting, Rebirth of Spring. Van Vagtendonk and Hoendervanger will receive $75,000 and $50,000, respectively.
“The experience of ArtPrize 2012 is that the opinions of people from all backgrounds are respected with arts professionals and the public standing on equal ground,” added DeVos.
Before the 2012 event, ArtPrize significantly increased the stature of the awards decided by a panel of jurors. Each juror was responsible for narrowing the long list of 1,517 artists to five, and then selecting a winner.
