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Massive Art Competition Turns This City Into a 4.5-Square-Mile Gallery 

by Amy "frankie" Felegy

A crowd of people at night in front of a lit-up building.
Photo Credit: Ellen Dziubek via ArtPrize
Since 2009, ArtPrize says it has given nearly $7 million to artists and garnered more than 4 million public votes. Pictured is the Closing Ceremony of 2024.

Over 1,100 artists from 18 countries will showcase their work at this year’s ArtPrize, Grand Rapids’ longstanding competition and celebration of all things creative.

September means the end of summer, the start of fall, and—in true Michigan tradition—the return of ArtPrize. It’s one of the largest art competitions in the world, founded in 2009. 

The two-plus-week festival spans across Grand Rapids (pop. 200,117) this year from September 18 to October 4. Galleries, breweries, and parks set the scene for open art crawls, renowned artist competitions, and creative events for the public.

This year, ArtPrize is awarding $600,000 in fundraising money to the winning artists, based on juried and community voting. The nonprofit says most of their budget comes from “corporate giving, followed by foundations, individuals, and government grants.”

Over 900 works will be on view, from artists across 39 states and 18 countries. 

A crowd of people outside under streetlights.
Photo Credit: Ellen Dziubek via ArtPrize
There are 155 venues at this year’s competition, which is one of the largest in the world. Pictured is ArtPrize 2024’s Opening Night Celebration.
Two men with dark skin tones wearing black shirts and baseball caps sit on a couch amid writing-filled paper.
Photo Credit: Keyon Lovett
Artist Keyon Lovett, right, with sound designer Huey Mnemonic in Lovett’s winning 2024 ArtPrize installation piece “456: A Reflection on Fatherhood.” He recreated his childhood living room, filled with letters to his father, who was shot and killed when Lovett was a baby: “ArtPrize is a very good platform to be able to do something on a grand scale . . . You go from painting on the street to now your work is being seen by thousands.”
A painting of a person in a scuba helmet with koi fish and a cloudy sky.
Photo Credit: Tatsuki Hakoyama
Tatsuki Hakoyama’s “Feel the Need to Breathe on My Own,” won ArtPrize’s 2024 Asian Art Community Award. “I’ve always been intrigued by this idea of what contributes to our values and culture and how we behave,” he says. “So that work, and a lot of my own work in general, is often analogical, figurative paintings that kind of works with that tension that exists between what we want to be, who we can be, but also what limits us from doing things.”
A person with medium skin tone and glasses in front of a painting.
Photo Credit: Tatsuki Hakoyama
Tatsuki Hakoyama, from Grand Rapids is a multiyear participant of ArtPrize: “It is a way to educate also the public on what do the people in the field, the jurors, see as art that stands out, and what do the general public see as intriguing art? And having a discourse on: What are those differences? Why does that happen?”
a person with light skin upside down and inside of a clay cast.
Photo Credit: Cameron Stalheim
“I just want to represent idea of growth within Sioux Falls, South Dakota. There’s so much creativity and grit, and I think we try really hard in the Midwest to be seen as artists,” Cameron Stalheim says. “My community of artists is just so talented and so beautiful, and just so willing to be part of the conversation. And so I feel like this is an opportunity to start that and to get us on the national stage.”
A portrait of a woman with medium skin tone wearing a black shirt and looking at the camera.
Photo Credit: Teresa Dunn
“I’m connected to a very long line of women that date back about 20,000 years, who is one of the five original maternal lines that populated the entire Indigenous Americas,” artist Teresa Dunn says. “It gives me chills every time I think about it and I say it out loud, and I imagine that line of me to my mother and her mother going back all that time and being a part of this incredible line of women.”
A large room with tall ceilings filled with people looking at art on the walls.
Photo Credit: Bryan Esler via ArtPrize
Anyone 13 years or older and present at the event (at least once!) can vote for their favorites via an app.
Three people looking at colorful dresses and gowns displayed by large windows.
Photo Credit: Bryan Esler via ArtPrize
Partnering venues in the 4.5-square mile “ArtPrize District” collaborate with all kinds of artists, showcasing works indoors and in outdoor spaces. Pictured is “Tale of Ten Dresses” by Rebecca Humes at JW Marriott at the 2023 ArtPrize.

ArtPrize 2025 is run by the City of Grand Rapids, Kendall College of Art and Design of Ferris State University, and Downtown Grand Rapids Inc. 

There’s installation art, live performances, sculptural work, architectural design, fashion, digital art, and more. Any artist over 18 can submit one piece to ArtPrize, where applicants must collaborate with host sites to be in the running.

Here are a couple of those artists involved, both from years past and upcoming. 

Teresa Dunn 

Teresa Dunn showed work at one of the very first ArtPrize competitions as well as last year. She says she’s first and foremost a Mexican American woman, before she’s a “visual storyteller.” 

“And that shapes a lot of who I am as an artist,” says Dunn, from East Lansing, Michigan.

Dunn’s piece “Brown Girl Club,” depicting her daughter’s math and science teachers, will be up at the city hall during this year’s ArtPrize. 

a large, colorful painting of various women doing different activities.
Teresa Dunn paints poetic stories from people of color and women; it’s clear in her winning 2024 ArtPrize piece “A Long Line of Women.”

“It’s a rare occasion where a city dedicates this timeframe to the arts in this way and it’s become an international phenomenon that that’s really exciting to be a part of,” she says. “Oftentimes, artists are making their work in isolation or in small groups . . . and you don’t know if it has impact or not until you get it out into the world.” 

For Dunn, ArtPrize “is a community building; it’s a celebration of artistic and creative practice.” 

a closeup of a bronze statue person's hand wrapped in fabric.
Photo Credit: Cameron Stalheim
“It’s asking to be more than itself, but it just has to let go of that fabric and then it’ll be free,” Cameron Stalheim says of “Persist.”

Cameron Stalheim

Sioux Falls, South Dakota, sculptor Cameron Stalheim works to capture bodily emotion, spirituality, and positivity with his pieces.

He was chosen to show one of his favorite sculptures “Persist” at Sixth Street Park for this year’s ArtPrize.

It’s a large, bronze piece depicting a figure holding down a fabric that’s binding it, arm outreached. Stalheim is currently working on transporting this 700-pound figure across the Midwest for his first ArtPrize showing.

To Stalheim—win or lose—ArtPrize shows the world how one artist can affect communities across the region and world.

“It’s just being able to step into one of the biggest conversations about art on an international level,” he says. “And we can do that, collectively, from the Midwest.”