This is Jerry Vile's ArtPrize entry

When we asked Jerry Vile to help us make sense of ArtPrize, he neatly summarized the show as typically exhibiting "so much talent, so much patience, and so little taste" — but that's why he says it's so great. "Art's about status," he told us. "And I think what I like about ArtPrize is it shakes up that status."

He also teased his own ArtPrize entry: "Hopefully I won't be kicked out of ArtPrize after I set up. I don't have a chance in hell of winning the prizes, but I have a good chance of being kicked out. I don't think the people walking around are going to think what I've done is art."

With ArtPrize in full swing, we can now reveal Vile's entry: a McMansion model home for a planned subdivision called "The Tarps," built out of cardboard boxes. 


"Jerry Vile's ArtPrize entry is in essence, as funny as it is uncomfortable," reads a press release. "It could also mean many other things as the country's infrastructure has shown cracks and the economic instability and disparity creates a multi-polemical state, Vile has constructed his satirical present/future vision of the great '90s McMansion subdivision reduced to it's own Hooverville which still exhorts conspicuous consumption."

According to the release, there will be a "house party" at The Tarps from 4:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 27. There will also be an "open house" from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 28. The Tarps is located at the 6th Street Bridge Park, 647 Monroe Ave NW, Grand Rapids.

We like the couch made out of Franzia boxes. Nice touch!


In other ArtPrize news, Ascentcare, a Grand Rapids home healthcare service, has offered its downtown office to serve as an accessible "AccessArt Lounge" for the mobility-challenged. The office offers ArtPrize voter registration, a voting station, complimentary use of their van, free parking for accessible vehicles, and recharging stations for electric wheelchairs and other battery-dependent medical devices. The office is located at 139 S. Division Ave., Grand Rapids; call 616-773-1773 or check out ascentcare.org for more information.