MichiganRadio

More than 1200 artists now out of running in ArtPrize GRAND RAPIDS, MI (Michigan Radio) - ArtPrize entries are scattered around a three square mile area including downtown Grand Rapids. Most of the works in the top ten were near the center of that area.
But way out on the edge of the boundary sits the Tanglefoot gallery.

It's in an old factory, next to a metal scrap yard. Elaine Dalcher has had studio space here for 20 years. She helped curate a collection for ArtPrize to show the work of 14 other artists.

Dalcher says hundreds of people made their way to Tanglefoot for ArtPrize, more than during a normal show here. But it's a tiny percentage of the 32,000 people who cast votes in the first round of the competition. Dalcher says it would have helped to have a shuttle from downtown.

"But, we also knew that we weren't going to win any of the big prizes," Dalcher said. "But we wanted to join in the community and in the spirit of ArtPrize and be a part of it because it's huge and its fun and its exciting. You know, we're not going to complain about not winning, we expected that."

Even though the artists at Tanglefoot didn't make the top ten, their work is still on display.

Over the next week, voters will decide which of the top ten works deserves to take home the $250,000 grand prize.

But many in town hope people continue to check out the art that's not in the top ten.

And among the social media crowd, there is one work out of the running that seems to have gotten the most attention.

"Young Kim blew me away," said Tommy Allen, a photographer from Grand Rapids. He actually has his own non-top ten piece in the competition, called the Kissing Booth. But Allen says one of his favorite works came from a North Carolina artist named Young Kim.

"And I think if just a couple more days had been allowed for people to discover it, I think they would have put it in the top ten, and then at that point I think it could have easily been number one," Allen said.

Young Kim's work, named Salt and Earth, is near the center of the city, but it's on a street that's half blocked by construction. Parking is terrible, walking at night isn't ideal, though the work itself is most striking at night. Low wattage lights hang from the ceiling in perfect rows. Each one illuminates a perfectly square mound of poured salt. Portraits of Grand Rapidians have been silk screened onto those mounds using powdered clay. It's massive and fragile, a breeze could blow the whole thing away.

The work didn't make the top ten, but it was ranked among the top 25, largely because of online buzz.

Brian Kelly was one of the main people driving that buzz on Twitter and on his blog.

"I had threatened at one point,if he didn't get in the top ten, I was going to rip my shirt off and run across town like in protest," Kelly said. "I didn't promise that, so I didn't have to actually do that, which many people are grateful for in this city."

Others on Twitter were upset Young Kim's work didn't make the cut. Last night, a number of people tagged their posts "Sorry Young Kim"

Kelly says one of the things that made Kim's work unique is that in a competition where many artists aggressively tried to court votes, Young Kim did no campaigning at all.

"He wasn't passing out business cards, he wasn't, you know, he wasn't here. But his work spoke for itself. That's another interesting aspect for me about ArtPrize."

And while ArtPrize is about to get more intense for those works in the top ten, many people are already talking about next year. How to make sure those works that are on the fringes of the competition can sneak into those top spots.
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