GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — ArtPrize will return in 2022, going back to its traditional annual timeline rather than the short-lived biennial format.
“We’re excited to be back on our annual basis and come back in a big, big way,” ArtPrize Executive Director Craig Searer told News 8 Monday. “All the businesses that we talked to, they are thrilled to have us back, and artists are as well.”
Rather than a competition in 2019, ArtPrize held a public art event called Project 1. In 2020, ArtPrize was canceled due to the pandemic and its future seemed uncertain. But the competition returned this year with a new way of sending money to artists and choosing the grand prize winner. Searer said that right now, staff is thinking about exactly how the 2022 competition will operate.
The organization is asking West Michigan to support the massive art competition that takes over downtown Grand Rapids. It said it wants to raise $15,000 on Giving Tuesday to help make ArtPrize happen this fall.
“Many people may not understand that ArtPrize is actually a nonprofit,” Searer said. “Every dollar that gets put into our organization generates about $20 in the West Michigan community.”
You can donate online at ArtPrize.org/donate.
“Whether you can commit $10 or $10,000, your gift helps us achieve our mission — to produce citywide contemporary art experiences that encourage critical discourse, celebrate artists, transform urban space and promote cultural understanding,” ArtPrize said in a Monday statement.