Lincoln made of pennies among winners at art event
DETROIT >> The winners of this year’s international ArtPrize competition were announced during an event in Michigan that’s known for openness — and increasingly, this year, politics.
A portrait of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln made with more than 24,000 pennies was among the top prizes Friday in the ninth annual international ArtPrize competition. “A. Lincoln” by Richard Schlatter was awarded one of two $200,000 prizes following a public vote in Grand Rapids, and for the other, a jury of experts selected Seitu Jones’ “The Heartside Community Meal,” which welcomed 250 residents to a 300-foot table in the city’s Heartside Park last month for a healthy, locally grown meal.
In all, $500,000 prizes were awarded as part of ArtPrize Nine, culled from the work of more than 1,300 artists on display since last month at more than 170 venues. They will remain open through Sunday evening.
Nine years in, the open, experimental mission remains firm for the show that draws hundreds of thousands of attendees annually. It comes directly from founder Rick DeVos, grandson of multibillionaire Rich DeVos, a co-founder of direct-sales giant Amway Corp., an ArtPrize sponsor, and son of U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. Her critics say she’s hostile to public education and indifferent to civil rights, citing her push for school choice and her decision to end the Obama administration’s rules for investigating allegations of on-campus sexual violence. School choice programs include charter schools, which are publicly funded but usually independently operated, and vouchers that help families cover tuition at private schools.
A spokeswoman said Rick DeVos wasn’t available to comment. He told The Associated Press in 2011 that organizers “want to make sure everyone knows that ArtPrize can host really any type of expression.”
The show has works critical of Betsy DeVos and the Trump administration, including “For-profit Education” by Sarah Ellis, a Grand Rapids high school teacher. She says in an artist’s statement that her video and installation-based piece reflects her concern over policies that harm “free and quality education for all.” Her video shows a hammer striking plaster casts of the ancient Greek philosopher Plato, who is quoted in the work saying, “Education is teaching our children to desire the right things.”
Detroit artist Eric Millikin’s “Made of Money” consists of dollar bills cut up and fashioned into portraits of “great people,” such as Nikola Tesla, Hedy Lamarr, Joe Louis and Edgar Allan Poe, who “died penniless.” Millikin said his work is designed to remind “that our best people aren’t always rewarded with wealth, and that our wealthiest people aren’t always our best.”