ArtPrize 2011 | Chris LaPorte

Chris LaPorte, Cavalry American Officers, 1921. Pencil on paper, 8 x 28 ft. Photo: ArtPrize/Brian Kelly.

ArtPrize 2011 marks my third year of blogging for this radical art festival and competition, where prize winners are determined by public vote. Follow my ongoing blog series, Eyes on the Prize, to learn more about what's happening here. An excerpt from my latest post:

To kick off Eyes on the Prize 2011 — the third and possibly final year of this blog series — I am picking up where ArtPrize 2010 left off: Chris LaPorte and his grand prize-winning drawing Cavalry, American Officers, 1921. Now on view at The Hub, the piece continues to merit “oohs” and “aahs” from viewers yet the grandeur it once possessed is greatly diminished. It could have something to do with its change of location, from the enormity of the Grand Rapids Art Museum to a tech-saavy playroom (complete with a Twitter motion game) and a wall barely long enough to hold it. Yet I can still appreciate that Cavalry is accessible to the public. Its very being here reminds us what the populist vote deemed worthy of $250,000, and the responsibility of voters over the next several days. 

LaPorte’s presence at ArtPrize 2011 doesn’t end at The Hub. A short walk away in Cathedral Square hangs his new piece Funeral Drawing, another photo-inspired work on paper, significantly smaller than Cavalry. At the time of this writing, Funeral Drawing is trending in the Top 25 for the neighborhood of Heartside. That the artist has entered the competition just a year after winning the grand prize seems unfair at best. How could ArtPrize officials allow this to happen? Then again, why didn’t LaPorte’s own ethics prohibit him from participating? His decision suggests that he is not the “nice guy” people have repeatedly described to me, but a man driven by insatiable hunger for money and media attention. Then I met LaPorte and now I don’t believe he’s interested in either. 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still against previous winners entering the competition in subsequent years.* There are plenty of good artists in the world who deserve a shot at winning. But LaPorte sounds far from being here to make money or just to be seen. “I originally wasn’t going to participate [this year],” said LaPorte. “Ron Pederson, who is the gallery director of the Exhibition Center at Cathedral Square and also head of the art department at Aquinas College where I teach, asked very nicely and was pretty persuasive. One point that he made was that, the last couple of years, the Exhibition Center at Cathedral Square has had some really wonderful shows, and its unfortunate that it hasn’t received the kind of attention it deserves. I think it’s a valid criticism that people tend to gravitate to just a few locations…Why wait two or three hours in line when you have a city filled with art.” As he continued, speaking of altruistic giving, arts education, and respect for his fellow artists, the self-seeking individual I had earlier imagined never showed his face. If LaPorte has another agenda, he is as skilled at masking it as he is with a number 2 pencil.

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