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NEWS
ArtPrize shows value of common vision
Mary Kramer
英文
(c) 2009 Crain Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.
Richard DeVos co-founded Amway Corp. and ranked 61st on Forbes list of richest Americans last week. His son, Dick, ran for governor three years ago.
But these days in Grand Rapids, the new joke goes, both men are perhaps best known as the grandfather and father of Rick DeVos.
A star has been born in that West Michigan city which has embraced 27-year-old Rick’s brainchild — ArtPrize.
If you can, head to GR this week to see it for yourselves. More than 1,200 artists from around the world connected online with more than 150 venues within three miles of downtown to hold the most unusual of art exhibits: a popular one that thousands of people — art fans and not — are flocking to.
Companies are loaning vacant buildings, Steelcase has used the opportunity to showcase a new line of outdoor furniture, and hotels and restaurants are packed. Some actually ran out of food the first weekend.
Last week, I was among a dozen business folks from Detroit who traveled to see this phenomenon. We were wowed.
ArtPrize seemed to engage the entire community, from the venues to the thousands of folks of all ages, races and ethnicities who are streaming downtown until Oct. 10 to be part of it. By Wednesday, more than 2,000 people had visited the Grand Rapids chamber of commerce — one of a handful of registration sites — to register for online voting for their favorites. Artists whose works land on the 10 most popular of the show will split $500,000 in prizes.
One of the Detroiters with me said at one point: How many arrows do you think it would take in our region to shoot such a great idea down?
The biggest cultural difference between metro Detroit and Grand Rapids may be this: When it comes to the economy and good ideas, the private sector leads in Grand Rapids (and even Kalamazoo) and the elected government officials tend to support or get out of the way. Sure, it helps to have money. DeVos had his family’s foundation backing his amazing Big Idea.
But in our region, good ideas may never surface because we’re so busy fighting among ourselves, especially among elected leaders. We don’t share a common vision for what it will take to make our 英语市场调研报告region great.
It’s the business community that lets our public officials get away with this. Maybe we should try to borrow some of West Michigan’s DNA.
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