Grand Rapids’ ArtPrize Is a Grand Experiment

CITYBEAT
By Steven Rosen

MICHIGAN---ArtPrize, which is promoted as a “radically open, independently organized international art competition,” began in 2009 as a “social experiment” to rally a city — an entire region — around visual art. It was the creation of Richard DeVos, a local billionaire who co-founded Amway. Within the ArtPrize District, anyone whose property has public access — from an auto body shop in a gritty industrial strip to downtown’s prestigious Grand Rapids Art Museum — is free to select artists to display work. This year, there were 169 venues — including outdoor sites like parks and plazas. Artists and venues connect via the artprize.org website — ArtPrize does not curate entries. [link]

Read More

20th Annual Judaica Craft Show Comes to White Plains November 16-17

SCARSDALE

"Tree of Life" Judaica pendant

NEW YORK---A dazzling array of Judaic crafts and jewelry will be shown and sold at the annual Bet Am Shalom Synagogue Judaica Craft Show, now celebrating its 20th year. The show begins on Saturday, November 16, at 8 p.m. and continues on Sunday, November 17, 10:00 a.m.-–5:30 p.m. The juried show features hundreds of unique works in all price ranges, created by 50 artists – nearly half from Israel, the rest from the U.S. and Canada; they include many well-loved favorites along with a dozen entirely new to the show. [link]

Read More

Shoshanah Brombacher is Showcased in "Colors of Chanukah"

BROADWAY WORLD

NEW YORK---The Lower East Side Jewish Conservancy will open "Colors of Chanukah: The Art of Shoshanah Brombacher" at the Fifth Jewish Heritage Festival on Sunday, November 3, 2013. The exhibit showcases the work of artist Shoshanah Brombacher, whose lively, colorful oil paintings explore Chasidic-Jewish themes and folklore. Brombacher will be on hand at the LESJC Kling & Niman Family Visitor Center to give a live presentation of her works at 1:30 PM. The exhibit is only one part of the day-long Fifth Jewish Heritage Festival. [link]

Read More

ArtPrize 2013's $100,000 "Juried" Grand Prize Comes From Spain

THE GRAND RAPIDS POST
By Jeffrey Kaczmarczyk

MICHIGAN---Carlos Bunga, winner of the ArtPrize 2013 $100,000 Juried Grand Prize, uses simple materials such as cardboard and tape. The Portuguese-born artist creates site-specific installations throughout the world in places such as the Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien in Berlin, the Biennale Internazionale di Scultura di Carrara in Italy and the Miami Art Museum. Bunga traveled from his home in Barcelona, Spain, to become the first international artist to win a top prize in the world's largest art prize. Bunga's installation, "Ecosystem," a site-specific, architectural intervention at SiTE:LAB @ 54 Jefferson, was selected from a field of all 1,524 entries in ArtPrize for the award given Friday evening at the ArtPrize Awards Night.[link]

Read More

ArtPrize 2013's $200,000 "Public Vote" Grand Prize Sees Victory as Boost for Quilt-Making as Artform

GRAND RAPIDS PRESS
By Jeffrey Kaczmarczyk

MICHIGAN---ArtPrize 2013's $200,000 First Prize winner Ann Loveless thinks her victory in the fifth annual competition is going to be a game changer for her genre. "Sleeping Bear Dune Lakeshore," depicting a scene of Lake Michigan, had visitors at ArtPrize convinced it was something else. "They think it's a photograph or an oil painting. I'd tell them, no," Loveless said. "They'd say, 'No way." "When you get closer, you realize it's made out of fabric," she said. The four-paneled quilt, 5 feet tall, 20 feet long, is the first textile to win the world's largest art prize. "Textiles aren't considered fine arts. They think of the quilt on the bed. But definitely this is art," she said. "I think next year, we'll have a lot of textile entries. I think I'm paving the way for quilters in general." [link]

Read More

Religion at Burning Man: Exploring the Holiness That Unites Us

LOS ALTOS TOWN CRIER
By Rev. Malcolm C. Young

The massive structure at the heart of everything was the Burning Man, standing on a spaceship, inviting participants to imagine an encounter with a vastly different culture and how it might change our self-understanding.

NEVADA---Burning Man, the weeklong festival in the northern Nevada desert, is one of the largest religious rituals in the western world. We danced, created and destroyed things together. We talked, cried, yelled and sat in silence. We came to the holy desert from wildly different places, but even in our ecstasy and despair, mostly we were one – like the future city that John of Patmos calls the New Jerusalem. I talked about God with Vedic priestesses, Unitarians, yogis, Quakers, entheogen voyagers, Episcopalians, Hindus, Roman Catholics, shamans, atheists and Zen teachers. I met people there who hate Christianity, people who, often for good reasons, associate it with bigotry and condemnation. This year’s theme, “Cargo Cult,” refers to religions established in the Pacific theater during World War II, when islanders first experienced the tremendous wealth and material power of American soldiers. [link]

Read More

ArtPrize's Online Youth Competition ArtStart Names 10 From 53 Winners

THE GRAND RAPIDS PRESS
By Monica Scott

MICHIGAN---The ArtPrize Education Team is calling ArtStart, an online youth competition launched this year, a success after drawing 53 entries in various art forms from around West Michigan. Ten unranked winners were recently named by artists from 1st grade to 11th grade. Besides an ArtPrize swag bag of items, students also received gift cards for art supplies or music, and a membership to the international art exhibition's partner of their choice, including Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park. [link]

Read More

Every Day in Canada Can be a Culture Day

SOOTODAY
By Donna Hooper

CANADA---This bright and beautiful Rangoli, a form of Indian folk art traditionally used to welcome Hindu deities, officially welcomed participants to the Art Gallery of Algoma for the 2013 edition of Culture Days. Visitors were invited to contribute to the collaborative Rangoli design before heading inside to take part in a number of workshops scheduled throughout the day. [link]

Read More

ArtPrize Entries for Sale: Competition Adds Button for Artists to Sell Work Online

GRAND RAPIDS PRESS
By Jeffrey Kaczmarczyk

ArtPrize 2013 entry "Ninkasi, the Sumerian Goddess of Beer" inside Founders Brewing Company

MICHIGAN---Artists participating in ArtPrize 2013 naturally hope to go home a winner, though only a handful will share in the $560,000 in prize money. Many of the rest have another financial windfall in mind – getting their work seen, garnering commissions and making a sale. ArtPrize is lending a hand by hanging a "For Sale" sign on its website. Go online to any entry's page on the ArtPrize website. If there's a blue icon with "Inquire" listed on the righthand side, that artist is ready, willing and, now, able to talk about a sale. [link]

Read More

Vandalism Hits Grand Rapids Artist's Noah's Ark ArtPrize Entry

GRAND RAPIDS PRESS
By Angle Jackson

Adele Vanocker said her entry called "Calm before the storm!" was vandalized. A paper mache dove was stolen from a window of the ship crafted from an old boat and wood. (Angie Jackson)

MICHIGAN---On Adele Vanocker's Noah's Ark ArtPrize entry aimed at spreading a message of faith, she dedicated a dove made of paper mache and Styrofoam to her late husband. The Grand Rapids artist was slightly discouraged to discover someone apparently stole the dove - a symbol of love. Vanocker said the sculpture was snatched from the installment outside of First United Methodist Church on either Thursday, Sept. 19, or the night before.[link]

Read More

Debut Jerusalem Festival Aims to Put Jewish Art on the Map

JEWISH TELEGRAPH AGENCY
By Ben Sales

Tobi Kahn’s “Saphyr” is among the works on display. (Miriam’s Studio)

ISRAEL---The reader opened with a recitation of Psalm 48 followed by a contemporary poem before yielding the floor to five male dancers, all wearing the standard haredi Orthodox uniform of black pants and white button-down shirt. One had bushy earlocks but no yarmulke. So began the inaugural Jerusalem Biennale, a six-week contemporary art festival that launched this week and will run through the end of October. Seeking to combine the best in Jewish and contemporary art, all of the pieces on display — from oversize worry beads bearing words like “Iran” and “militant Islam” to an installation of a Shabbat dinner table — share a single goal: To show that Jewish art reaches far beyond the kiddush cups and menorahs available in synagogue gift shops. [link]

Read More

Six Steps to Making the Most of ArtPrize

PURE MICHIGAN

MICHIGAN---If you’ve never explored the unique buildings or graced the diverse streets of Grand Rapids during ArtPrize, you may be wondering where to start. No worries, there are few simple things you can do to make visiting the world’s largest art competition simple, fun and inspiring. Todd Herring, Director of Communications for ArtPrize, shares these steps with us below. [link]

• Step 1 – Get Inspired
• Step 2 – VOTE!
• Step 3 – Keep Moving
• Step 4 – Stay in the know
• Step 5 – Attend ArtPrize Events
• Step 6 – Make it Your Own.

Read More

ArtPrize 2013: Exploring Event's Effects on Grand Rapids in Numbers

GRAND RAPIDS PRESS 
By Jeffrey Kaczmarczyk

Detail of 2012 Top Prize winner: "Elephants" at Grand Rapids Art Museum.

MICHIGAN---Last year, an estimated 400,000 visits were made to ArtPrize with viewers casting 412,560 votes to award Adonna Khare, of Burbank, California, the $200,000 ArtPrize First Prize for her large-scale drawing “Elephants.” Five years later, the conversation begins once again. ArtPrize 2013 opens on Wednesday, Sept. 18, for 19 days of looking at art and talking about art. Time magazine, earlier this year, named ArtPrize one of its “Five Festival Events You Won’t Want to Miss in 2013.” It’s safe to say $560,000 in prize money is plenty of incentive for artists. An economic impact study of ArtPrize 2011 determined it added $15.4 million to the local economy, attracted more than 320,000 visitors that year and created the equivalent of 200 new jobs.

Detail of 2011 Top Prize winner: "Crucifixion" 
by Mia Tavonatti at DeVos Place Convention Center.

2013 By the Numbers:

• 1,812 artists
• 1,524 works of art
• 169 venues
• 96 hours (minimum official open hours)
• 47 countries represented
• 45 U.S. states represented
• 31 percent of artists coming from outside Michigan
• 19 days in the exhibition
• 18 years old – the minimum age to enter ArtPrize as an artist
• 16 years old – the minimum age to vote in ArtPrize
• 14 public spaces – parks, plazas, parking places – showing art
• 11 days to vote in Round 1
• 10 cash prizes chosen by the people
• 9 Exhibition Centers and Showcase Venues
• 7 percent of artists are from foreign countries
• 6 cash prizes chosen by jurors
• 5 days to vote in Round 2
• 3 square miles in event’s main downtown district
• 2 National Endowment for the Arts grants awarded to ArtPrize to date
• 1 official beer: Founder’s Brewing Co.’s Inspired Artist Black IPA

Read More

Original Artwork Thrives at Burning Man Festival

PBS NEWS HOUR

NEVADA---Every year for one week, bold, super-sized works of art spring to life in one of the harshest yet most starkly beautiful settings imaginable … the Black Rock Desert of Nevada. Since its start in 1986, the festival has become the largest outdoor art festival in North America. Last week, more than 65,000 people attended the one-week event. KQED collected photos of the art and crowds in Storify. [link]

Read More

Drone's Eye View Of Burning Man Makes You Feel Like You Were There

HUFFINGTON POST
By Sarah Barness

Cult poster for 2013

Burning Man has just ended and surreal images are beginning to emerge, revealing the magic that took place on the playa this year. Check out this drone's eye view as it flies over some 68,000 participants, amazing art installations and the changing desert scenery of Burning Man. [link]

Read More

$20,000 Prize to Improve Race Relations in Indianapolis

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS
By Ernest Disney-Britton

INDIANA---During a year of risk-taking philanthropic ideas in Indianapolis, the Spirit & Place Festival has now announced a $20,000 award for a daring idea that reshapes notions of race in Central Indiana, and the public will get to vote for the best ideas. The innovation began this Winter with the power2give from the Arts Council of Indianapolis, and was followed this Summer by the 5x5 program of the CICF. Individuals and organizations from any sector and discipline—artists and cultural organizations, faith leaders and congregations, scholars and educational organizations, social entrepreneurs and civic organizations—are invited to submit original projects by October 1. Details and submission info at www.spiritandplace.org.

Read More

Inaugural Festival of Faiths Launches in Indianapolis

STATE OF INDIANA | OFBCI

INDIANA---Central Indiana has a long history of honoring our religious diversity. In a world where religious differences too often separate people and communities, Hoosiers have learned to work together to understand and respect our growing multi-faith society. On Sunday October 13, 2013 we will come together for an Inaugural Festival of Faiths in downtown Indianapolis to learn about our religious heritage and share the joy of our many unique faith traditions. The Festival will take place inside the Indiana World War Memorial and outside on the grounds of Veterans Memorial Plaza located on the corner of Meridian and Michigan Streets. For additional information call (317) 318-5304. [link]

Read More