Blog

Results just in from the Grand Rapids, MI, marathon Art Prize (Sept. 24-Oct. 12) - over $500,000 in awards

Public Vote and Juried Awards: 
Two grand prizes worth $400,000 and eight category awards worth $160,000. Half decided by public vote, and half decided by a jury of art experts.

Since its inception the public (you and me) have gotten the chance to choose who gets the $$$. But, jurors got their noses out of joint, not liking the choices that the "public" made, so this year they brought in jurors to pass out the Jury Choice along with the Public Choice.

Amazingly, the public and the jurors agreed! Who knew that could happen? We do, don't we? We're out there jurying and meeting the public -- sometimes big bucks ensue, sometimes not.

The big winner of ArtPrize 2014 is Anila Quayyum Agha, whose installation "Intersections" nabbed the Public Grand Prize and shared the Juried Grand Prize, for a total of $300,000. Anila is currently an associate professor of drawing at the Herron School of Art in Indianapolis. $300,000 is a pretty nice addition to an associate professor's salary. Clicking on this link will take you to photos of "Intersections" in the exhibition space. 

But wait a minute, although member John Leben did not win, someone who has been in this business forever was a $20,000 prize winner for winning the public vote for Best 3D work, for his resin sculpture "Reciprocity" - Marc Sijan!

Sijan said he felt shock when his name was called from the ArtPrize Awards stage for his sculpture, a very personal representation of him carrying his aging father. He said he wanted to use the money to create more art, but implied that he may give some to charity.

“My heart was pounding,” he said. “(The sculpture is) about unconditional love. It’s payback, to carry my dad like he carried me.”

Congratulations, Marc!

See all the winners here:http://www.mlive.com/artprize/index.ssf/2014/10/artprize_awards_201...