And they say that Americans aren’t interested in art! Over half a million people attended the 19-day-long Grand Rapids Art Prize Festival. The top prize of $200,000 was chosen by public vote and awarded for a quilt — of all things! — of Sleeping Bear Dunes on Lake Michigan. Come to think of it, why shouldn’t a quilt be as much of a work of art as a painting? The exquisite sculpture of a native-American couple that we favored won fourth prize of $50,000 and has already been purchased.
Tenacity pays. The woman who’s dragon composed of thousands of gold buttons was disqualified last year ended up in the Top Ten for her griffin made of bamboo pieces. The huge blown-glass orchids that Lynn, Mary Jo and I loved also made the Top Ten.
Well! One of the goals of the Art Prize organizers is to promote public discussion of art, and I know from personal experience that they succeeded.
Last week I mentioned the brouhaha about the white flowers that were stuck on the Calder piece that has become the symbol of Grand Rapids. Mary Jo, the wife of one of Bill’s nephews, is a professional artist and may enter Art Prize next year. This is what she wrote:
“I can’t believe they made them take the flowers off the Calder sculpture! Why do so many have to be such busy bodies and force their righteous opinions on others? It’s not like they were there for long. Maybe Mr. Calder had a sense of humor and would have been delighted to see his piece draw such attention. Sometimes I just get tired of everyone being politically correct! Our freedom of expression shouldn’t be squelched if it isn’t hurting another.”
Rick de Vos, the originator of the Art Prize Festival, said, “It’s taken us five years, but we’ve finally found a nude controversy . . . It’s kind of amazing that it took as long as it did.”
Last week I flippantly wrote that I might have refused the entry to which de Vos was referring because those had to be the ugliest renderings of human bodies with sagging bosoms and bloated bellies I’ve ever seen! I received an e-mail from Bill’s great-niece, Debbie who wrote, “When we think of works of art as always being beautiful, we leave out that which could be inspiring or thought provoking.” She’s right, of course. For example, Rodin’s “Thinker” was branded as brutish and ugly by some.
Monet, Manet, James McNeil Whistler and others were denied places in the all-important Salon whose organizers had rigid rules about art. Rather that using classical themes and working in studios, they painted living people and worked outdoors and painted from nature. Some of the artists who were denied formed their own exhibition, the Salon des Refuses.
The French take art very seriously. There were huge scandals about Manet’s “Olympia” and his “Dejeuner sur l’herbe” — “Luncheon on the Grass.”
Olympia was a demimondaine, a very highly paid prostitute, who’s lying nude on a chaise lounge as a client arrives. The fact that she’s nude was no big deal, but instead of having her eyes cast down as a fallen woman should, she is looking coolly and directly out of the canvas at the viewer which offended propriety. “Le Dejeuner sur l’herbe” is a lovely painting of a couple of men and nude models, picnicking. What was shocking wasn’t the nudity, but the fact that the men were clothed!
And now? And now the works of the refused sell for enormous prices. For example, a Cezanne sold for $268 million! Yes, I said two hundred sixty-eight million! A painting by Jackson Pollock who drizzled paint on canvases sold for $140 million. Scorned during his lifetime, many of Van Gogh’s paintings were bundled up and sold for pennies after his death. One of his paintings sold for 82 million British pounds. wclarke@comcast.net
