I’m not in Grand Rapids, but I’ve been keeping an eye on ArtPrize ever since I mentioned it in April. From afar, it seems to be living up to expectations, at least in terms of excitement.

Monday’s Grand Rapids Press had an article about performance art entries, describing one work as “a live duet between [Ritsu] Katsumata’s riveting electric violin work and [her husband Stafford] Smith’s digital camera shots and film clips flashing on stacks of television sets.” It’s called Fearscape and is ranked as one of the most controversial of the more than 1,200 entries — “a response to the climate of fear perpetuated by the mass media.” It’s also attracting viewers.

ArtPrize organizers have worked hard to create excitement, including holding regular media briefings and scheduling all kinds of events, every day, published online — like this one. Go to its website, and you’ll see pictures of the (current) top vote-getters, including one by Jason Hackenwerth (above right) and one by Terrence Karpowicz (left).

Even they didn’t plan for some things, though — on Sunday night, strong winds blew through the city, damaging some works, according to WOOD-TV8.

And the excitement has spilled over to the commercial galleries, according to the Press, which described gallery traffic here.

The first-round voting continues until Oct. 1 — Thursday — when you can see the top ten entries. They will go to round two voting. It’s hard to tell what this means for art; there are simply too many artist-participants to study from afar, but I did notice a paucity of women among the top 25.

One artist/musician has already captured local sentiment, or maybe wishful thinking: “I think we’re beginning to shift the DNA of Grand Rapids,” he told a reporter.

UPDATED: 9/29: I forgot to post a link to this Detroit Free Press article, perhaps the best roundup of what’s going on in Grand Rapids, with good background and some skepticism.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of ArtPrize 

Art, it turns out, wasn’t just for ladies at the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh last week, which I’ve written about here and here. President Obama decided to give a gift of art to the world leaders in attendance. Inspired by an exhibition at the Phipps Conservatory in Pittsburgh, where the Obamas held a reception on Thursday night at the start of the summit, it’s the glass tree at right, made by Frabel Studio.

Frabel Studio, the Atlanta home of flamework glass artist Hans Godo Frabel, posted this description on its website:

…all of the Tree’s leaves point upward symbolizing success and cooperation; the Tree’s pinnacle shape symbolizes unity and movement towards a common goal; trees are a symbol of strength, wisdom and endurance; glass, a beautiful yet fragile material, symbolizes the fragility of freedom, liberty and our environment; and beneath the Tree’s black wooden base is a 1/2″ stainless steel plate representing Pittsburgh’s former steel industry that is moving to new, environmentally-friendly products…

Well, ok, if that’s what you say. The Obamas, btw, were presented with a glass bowl and some glass frogs by Frabel, a gift from the Conservatory, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

The Phipps exhibit is called Life in the Gardens, and includes these two works, Glass Wavy Bowl (below) and Longfellow Gravity (right):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo Credit: Courtesy Frabel Glass Art Studio and Gallery

Well, the Pittsburgh G-20 summit is over, and as I mentioned here in early August, Michelle Obama took her fellow spouses to a couple of art venues. All went well, but it seems that
Carla Bruni, wife of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, managed to get off the best line — as repeated by Mrs. Obama when she spoke to her colleagues and about 250 students at the CAPA magnet school for the arts:

As my good friend, Carla Sarkozy, said, you know, in America, you know, here you have people who can sing, and they can dance, and they can act. Now, she said in France it’s not often that you get all of those wrapped in one. But she said there’s something unique about America’s talents where it’s just so natural to see all of that talent on display. So you all should be so very proud.

Wonder how that went over in France.

Everything else Mrs. Obama said was pretty predictable stuff about the arts belonging to everyone and the power of the arts to connect people. Yo-Yo Ma, Trisha Yearwood and Sara Bareilles were there to perform with some CAPA students. Later the spouses visited the Andy Warhol Museum.

Here’s the Pittsburg-Post Gazette article about the visit and a blog item, in which Bruni — the only spouse to speak to the media at the museum — said: “I think I wish I could stay a little longer, because we only stay one-and-a-half days, but I think it’s beautiful,” referring to the city. Charmer.
  

It’s good news that the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is getting the Doris and Donald Fisher collection, on loan, to fill planned new galleries. But if you’ve read just the bare-bones announcement in today’s papers, you may have missed a couple of significant parts of the deal.

Quick recap: the Fishers wanted to build their own museum in the city’s Presidio, but were turned down. Rather than taking their art and going elsewhere, the Fishers (happily) are remaining loyal to the city where they made the fortune, via The Gap, that allowed them to buy their collection: some 1,100 works by  Alexander Calder, Chuck Close, Willem De Kooning, Richard Diebenkorn, Anselm Kiefer, Ellsworth Kelly, Roy Lichtenstein, Brice Marden, Agnes Martin, Gerhard Richter, Richard Serra, Cy Twombly, Andy Warhol and others.

Now, significantly:

• Works from the Fisher Collection will be on view in a new wing that will also include art from the museum’s collection. In addition, works from the Fisher Collection will be interwoven in existing galleries with SFMOMA’s modern and contemporary holdings. (Segregating private collections, after a while, is almost always a mistake for the institution and the art.)
• The Fishers will create a trust, administered in collaboration with SFMOMA, to oversee the care of their collection at the museum, renewable after 25 years.  
• Before building the 100,000 sq. ft. expansion, SFMOMA will work with Bain and Company to develop a real business plan to define the impact of the enlarged facility, increased operations, and enhanced programming on the museum’s expansion and annual operating budgets. (If other museums had done this before their expansions, many would not be in the trouble they’re in now.) 
• The business plan will inform both the contributions to the capital campaign and endowment that will be made by the Fishers and the funds that need to be raised by the museum.

We’ve all heard complaints about the excessive influence of business executives on museums in the last few years. This time, the opposite seems true. The Fishers know business, and so does Charles Schwab, chairman of SFMOMA’s trustees. Under director Neal Benezra, the museum seems to have got this one right.

Here’s a link to the full press release. Strawberries to all.

UPDATED, 9/28: Don Fisher died yesterday, according to the Wall Street Journal. 

Grand Rapids, with its Art Prize contest now underway, is stealing a lot of thunder this week. But it’s not the only Michigan city in the art game this fall. Art Detroit Now, a weekend event set for Oct. 2 and 3, is an attempt to raise the profile of contemporary art and artists in the erstwhile Motor City, normally viewed as far from the madding art crowd. Buzz, the organizers believe, works.

The event, which involves an art crawl, gallery open houses, museum open houses and workshops at about 50 venues, began in 2008. It’s not unique, but I give the locals arts crowd credit for trying specifically to build on the momentum created by the reopening of the Detroit Institute of Arts two years ago and the opening of the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (above) in 2006.

Last time, in May 2008, Art Detroit Now involved “3 days, 75 galleries, 1000’s of artists” in and around the city center. This time, there’ve been a few changes. The full press release is here.

I thought it was an opportunity for a good Five Questions, and Marc Schwartz, a founding member of the event and this year’s chair, agreed.

1) There’ve been changes since 2008 — two days now, instead of three; fall instead of spring, etc. What prompted those changes, what did you learn from the 2008 event?

 

In Detroit, gallery and shows openings have historically been on Friday nights, or on Saturday during the afternoon or evening.  Last year, those venues that scheduled events on Thursday did not get the bump in attendance we had hoped for, so this year we decided that a 2-day concentrated effort would work better for everyone.  With regard to Spring vs. Fall, we’re new at this. The first time around, we decided on the Spring as an attempt to draw more people to art venues at a slower time of the year. This time, we through we’d use the start of the art season as a basis to build on. In a few weeks, we’ll assess everything, and start plans for a bigger and better 3rd edition.  

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