Lott-Richards

Lott-Richards on CNN

On September 15, 2009, Sue Lott and Matthew Richards traveled to Grand Rapids, Michigan to join a team of artists supporting Jonathan Haner and Teresa Holmberg in Haner’s entry for the world’s largest art competition, the Grand Rapids ArtPrize. The team built the world’s largest doll, La Grand Bébé—a 72-foot long soft sculpture made of industrial plastic tarp and polystyrene foam. Sue Lott provided project management while Holmberg, still in Sweden, watched the project’s progress via Internet. Holmberg flew in for the final day of the build to stay through opening day at ArtPrize.

Thanks to Grand Rapids native, Jen Walsh, news media leader CNN took interest and broadcasted ongoing reports of the big baby’s progress. Matthew Richards’ and Sue Lott’s photography was emailed to Holmberg as the events unfolded and published with each CNN report.

The Grand Rapids ArtPrize awarded a grand prize of $250,000 and the winner was decided by popular vote. The city-wide competition was the first of its kind and transformed the streets of downtown Grand Rapids into a virtual Circus Maximus of tourism, competition, attention-seeking, art and craft, good and bad alike.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 19th, 2010 at 21:12. It is filed under Press and tagged with arme des enfants, artprize, Friends, Press. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.