Fair Saint Louis / ArtPrize

Remember the 1904 Olympics?  Remember the 1904 World's Fair?  I don't.  I wasn't there.  I have been here though,

The fair made Forest Park.  It also left behind a zoo,

a university admin building,

and an art museum,

Look at those fountains and their clean water.  Prior to 1904, St. Louis had brown water.  The fair made us upgrade our water treatment systems.  The fair gave us clean water.  It left a legacy. 

Will we ever have another World's Fair or World's Expo?  The Olympics leaves stadiums, but also subway lines.  What events give us infrastructure?

Some events don't leave much of an impact.  Remember the VP Fair?

We had it every year.  Now we call it Fair Saint Louis,

It seems like the Fair has gotten kind of smaller over time in my imagination.  It was huge when I was a kid.  Now it seems like a small crowd gathered around for concerts, an air show, fireworks, and maybe a parade.  There's some carnival sort of stuff, but nothing as exotic as it felt in my childhood.  There ought to be more to it than just another Beach Boys concert.  There ought to be something more substantial to it.  Why not leave something material behind every year?  Combine it with a few other events and make it dynamic with something for everybody.

Did you catch the buzz about ArtPrize?  Grand Rapids, the home of Amway, launched onto the national stage with their public festival.  By all accounts, it was a crazy thing.  It was just an art contest.  The winners got money. 

Artists. Find a host for your art.  Get people to see it and vote for it.  Go all over town trying to convince people to go to the place where your art is shown.

Venues.  Get approached by an artist, offer space, and watch that artist work hard at bringing people into your business.

Citizens.  Take the week off and try to see all the art.  If there's buzz about a particular piece, try to track down the obscure coffee shop or space that's hosting it.  See the art, talk to the artist, patronize the business.  Debate your friends about how to vote. 

City.  Get national attention.  Keep a legacy of public art that's too big to move after the contest.

For less than half a million dollars, Grand Rapids put itself on the national stage and made itself shine.  People came from around the world to see the spectacle of it and got sucked into the art scavenger hunt.  If it happens every year, then those legacies will accumlate.

Fair St. Louis could be expanded.  As the World's Fair included the Olympics, so too can Fair St. Louis include conventions, competitons, circuses (no animals), and more. 

Fair St. Louis could introduce competitions.  More than one.  City neighborhoods could compete with each other for grants.  High Schools could compete for scholarships.  The RFT could put it's best of list into the mix.  Make it one big 'get to know your city' festival with everyone voting on everything. 

St. Louis Earth Day has become a year-long organization, maybe they could hand out awards for people meeting the goals of some contest held between Earth Day and July 4th. 

Taking an idea from City Sound Tracks, we could spread Fair St. Louis to every metrolink station.  Figure out a fair way to make stations compete for public love.  Station upgrades would just be incorporateed into the Fair St. Louis budget as we make it into a collaborative, regional effort. 

Remember our flood wall graffiti competitions?

That could be part of Fair St. Louis too.  Sanction it and let people at the arch grounds walk down and cast votes during the Fair.  Incorporate the floodwall to the north.  Add a dozen other locations around the region.  Most people don't like graffiti, so the prize money would surely go to more tasteful murals.  Maybe we can slowly build up something like Philly has:  murals and mosaics everywhere you look.

Fair Saint Louis should leave an annual legacy.  It doesn't have to be art.  It could be infrastructure.  It could be grant money.  It should be something with mass appeal though.  If it left a year-long visible impact on the city, people would support it.  People would plan their summers around it.