In 1989 Tracy Van Duinen graduated from the Kendall College of Art and Design in Grand Rapids, Michigan, with a BFA in advertising design and went right to work in his chosen field. By 1996 he was a senior art director at an international advertising firm in Rolling Meadows, managing accounts for clients like Sega Genesis and Hewlett Packard. He was also miserable. “Expectations were high but creative rewards were few,” he says. Decisions were driven by business minutiae or the personal whims of executives (not to mention their spouses). “There wasn’t any real meaning in the work,” and the hours were so long there wasn’t any time for his own projects.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Van Duinen, who now works at Social Justice High School in Little Village, joined the muralists at the nonprofit Chicago Public Art Group at about the same time he went to work for CPS. You can see his artwork on Lake Shore Drive underpasses and throughout the city. Two years ago, his Living 2007, a mosaic mural under the drive at Bryn Mawr, was the Reader‘s pick for best public artwork. Then last summer, his huge, multipart mural Imagine That won $100,000 in the first annual ArtPrize competition in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
And that was just for second place. The first-place winner, New York-based oil painter Ran Ortner, won $250,000.
The original concept was that venue owners would function as curators. But last year, the former GRAM site was curated by Grand Rapids’s Urban Institute for Contemporary Art, and DeVos says ArtPrize is adding four or five more large, institutionally curated venues this year. Some say that’s a welcome development because it’s expected to lead to a more discriminating selection of artists and raise the quality of the art on display. On the other hand, it’s a departure from the original populist thrust of the event.
