CEOs for Cities' Carol Coletta on ArtPrize

Last year, CEOs for Cities President Carol Coletta published an article in Good entitled, "What an ArtPrize in Michigan Can Teach Us About Building Better Cities." The article highlighted multiple lessons Coletta felt could be learned from the ArtPrize model including "the value of giving people permission to be entrepreneurial," "rapid prototyping," and decentralization:

"The competition makes it clear that the middle, once again, is threatened and may soon become obsolete. The middle, in the case of ArtPrize, are the arbiters of taste. DeVos' deep belief in decentralization resulted in a platform to match buyers (initially, those with exhibition space and ultimately, voters) and sellers (artists) directly to one another."

As ArtPrize moves into year two, we at Rapid Growth Media thought it would be appropriate to ask Coletta about her opinions regarding ArtPrize's sophomore effort.

RGM: Now that it's bean a year, I'd like an overall opinion regarding your perception of ArtPrize -- how you think it's going to go, and what changes you think will be implemented.

CC: First of all, I think the first year was better than they could have ever expected. I've been involved in a lot of events over the years -- creating and producing them -- and the success of year one was really breathtaking. It's clear that the word got around. You can see what's happening this year is better, and somewhat bigger, but certainly better -- there's the quality of the work, the recognition of ArtPrize and the legitimate art undertaking. But it's about more than art. It's about engagement, and I think that people very much are respecting ArtPrize for the lessons even in just one year that it taught us. I can't wait to see what happens this year.

RGM: It's nice to get an outsider's perspective, because we live here all the time and all of a sudden it's full of people. It's different, but it's still home base. You talk about this being a potential lesson to other cities. Over this past year, do you think other cities have taken this as a lesson; do you see evidence of this having a national effect?

CC: Chicago attempted to do a version of ArtPrize. They didn't really get the essence of it. They were inspired by ArtPrize, but certainly didn't take to heart the foundation on which Artprize is built, the deep belief system on which ArtPrize is built, and that doesn't surprise me. When people see something that is great on the surface like ArtPrize, they don't necessarily stop to really understand it, they just see what they see and then they go try to copy it. I'm saying the exciting thing about ArtPrize is the aesthetic principle upon which it is built and how closely the organizers adhere to that set of principles. So instead of being another 'food, music and beer' (event), they've done something that started so very different. It's just an incredible gift to Grand Rapids, and Grand Rapids gives it back by sharing venues and hospitality. They're providing a platform for people to get together, and a whole lot of prize money, of course, but they trust the process enough to be hands-off. They're not going to choose the artists, the venues or the winners. How extraordinary is that?

RGM: I think that's particularly unique to ArtPrize versus other prizes and even some artist showcases.

CC:  Completely, and what's interesting is that I think this a model for how companies are sticking their toes in the water in terms of how they relate to their customer, but ArtPrize jumped in the deep end... and made it.

I think anyone wanting to take inspiration from ArtPrize needs to really study and understand what it's all about.

RGM: Right. And those principles, you think, are namely how open ArtPrize is to its public?

CC: I think that if you look at their very formal document, it's really interesting. They say ArtPrize is not here to validate creative output, but to be an incentive, and has the sense of wanting to be a catalyst for collisions and connections between artists and community.  Then they think about the requirements (to participate), and the requirements are really very simple. I just think it's amazingly smart, this whole notion of holding the reigns lightly as to how people participate in the event, and their biases towards enabling other to create the experience rather than create it themselves. That's something that's very exciting to me not just as model for other events, but it's a model for communities, government, businesses and non-profit. I think they're way ahead of the curve here.

RGM: When you were talking about this, I was reminded of something else CEOs for Cities is involved in that's happened here, where it's very simply executed but involves an incentive. I mean MyGRCity Points, which we just started. I believe (this program) uses an incentive to encourage people to use the single-stream recycling program, and this program is unique to Grand Rapids. A lot of people have said they think Grand Rapids is a good testing ground city. Is that something you think is true?

CC:  I think it is for a couple reasons. One thing is its size: it's small enough to get your arms around, but big enough to make a difference. The other thing that is exciting about Grand Rapids is that there is a group of people where it's like innovation is in the blood. They're willing to try things and they care so deeply about their community that they will do things on behalf of their community. You have a pretty extraordinary city manager. I mean, he operates more like New York. 'Yeah, we want to get this done, we're going to figure out how to get this done.' What (Grand Rapids) has been able to do in very short order, like My GRCIty Points, would have taken other cities three years.

RGM: Last year, there were a lot of people upset about ArtPrize. They thought having art be a competition with no curator for the winner was going to make people think that Grand Rapids didn't take art seriously, or make Grand Rapids seem like a joke to the art world. I'm wondering what someone who works with cities might say to the people of Grand Rapids to get them universally excited about this in its second year.

CC: Well, again, I think that ArtPrize is a model, not just for other arts events or other events period, but for all sorts of ways of organizing and situations and businesses, non-profits, governments, etc. I feel like the future is being invented in Grand Rapids with ArtPrize, and that to me is something that everyone can take pride in whether or you're interested art or agree with the way art is being selected. I think everybody in Grand Rapids has a stake in what the world thinks about Grand Rapids. You may not think you do, but you do. It has a lot to do with 'can you attract talent, can you attract business, will people invest in Grand Rapids?' What ArtPrize is doing to increase the brand value of the city is really important to everybody, whether you feel it directly or not. Plus, there's how ArtPrize invites the community to participate in a way that is genuine, in a way that says, 'Come help make a significant decision.' How many times are we invited to do that?