Send This Art Prize Back To The Drawing Board
Are there more art prizes for individual artists this year, or does it just seem that way? And are they all worthwhile?
I've posted here about several -- the MacDowell Medal, the Wolgin Prize, Guggenheim Fellowships, the Public Art Award, the Biennale's Golden Lion award, and of course ArtPrize. Some new, some old, and just a small sampling of those available.
Last Thursday came the brand new "First Annual Art Awards" produced by artist Rob Pruitt at the Guggenheim Museum "in association with" White Columns and "event partner" Calvin Klein Collection. Phew.
The dozen awards were for lifetime achievement, an international exhibition, and nine meant for exhibitions and projects that had significant impact on the field of contemporary art and took place between January 2008 and June 2009 in the United States. Artists and art world professionals (it's unclear how they were chosen) selected the winners, except for the two Lifetime Achievement Awards, which were determined by Pruitt, the Guggenheim and White Columns, and the Rob Pruitt Award, which "was decided solely by the artist."
The awards were given at a dinner at the Guggenheim, intended to rival the Oscars: "Tickets for the event were offered by invitation only." The prizes, designed by Pruitt, were fashioned as buckets of Champagne that are actually lamps.
Ok, it was a benefit, but the whole thing strikes me as off-key -- a fest for the elite that ends up being more about partying than art, and alienates the general public. And, yes, as the Los Angeles Times' Culture Monster blog said, it was supposed to be ironic -- but I wonder if that's how it was perceived. David Ng, the LAT writer, wondered, too. Many news outlets seem to have ignored the whole thing.
Why, when I've been mostly positive about the new ArtPrize, which was decided by the masses not the cognoscenti, am I so down on Pruitt's awards?
Simple: say what you will about ArtPrize, which was far from perfect, it had a big impact on the public, drawing them in to look at art. As the Grand Rapids Press reported recently, more than 80,000 people went to see winner Ran Ortner's work, along with that of two others among the Top 10 contenders, in the city's Old Federal Building during ArtPrize's 18 days of competition. Could it have been better art? Absolutely. Maybe next year it will be.
Pruitt's event had the opposite effect, I think. Karen Rosenberg, of The New York Times, also wrote a blog post about the event's intended irony but noted, "The acceptance speeches got longer over the course of the evening and made less sense." Lots of fun for the in-crowd art-world? Probably. For the public?
In any case, here are the winners:
- Artist of the Year: Mary Heilmann
- Curator of the Year: Connie Butler
- Exhibition Outside the United States: Jeff Koons, Versailles, Château de Versailles, France
- Group Show of the Year, Gallery: Who's Afraid of Jasper Johns? Tony Shafrazi Gallery, New York
- Group Show of the Year, Museum: The Pictures Generation, 1974-1984, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
- New Artist of the Year: Ryan Trecartin
- The Rob Pruitt Award: Cynthia Plaster Caster
- Solo Show of the Year, Gallery: Manzoni: A Retrospective, Gagosian Gallery, New York
- Solo Show of the Year, Museum: Martin Kippenberger: The Problem Perspective, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and Museum of Modern Art, New York
- Writer of the Year: Jerry Saltz
About
Judith H. Dobrzynski Now an independent journalist, I've worked as a reporter in the culture and business sections of The New York Times, and been the editor of the Sunday business section and deputy business editor there... more
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