Welcome to the archive of the annual Art Gallery Music Composition Competition at Grand Valley State University. This competitive event began in 2009, with the generous support of Larry and Elaine Rutowski Shay, and has seen premiered 257 student-composed music compositions resulting in over $6,500 in prize money awarded. Each year GVSU student composers are invited to create 60-second compositions that are based on artwork displayed in the college art gallery. Compositions are submitted anonymously, and then rehearsed and performed by the GVSU New Music Ensemble. A panel of judges and the audience select prize-winning works, which are announced immediately after the performances. Our first competition in 2009 corresponded with the gallery show, The Paris of Touoluse-Lautrec, Bonnard, and Vuillard. Subsequent shows paired compositions with artifacts from the American Museum of Magic, space photography, Southwest Pueblo Indian pottery, an Art Prize mural, poems and images honoring the Great Lakes, a room-size piece of 2,000 images, and photography of the ravines of Grand Valley. For our anniversary event, the compositions are based on the art in the recently renovated Louis Armstrong Theatre lobby in the Haas Center for the Performing Arts.

As we reflect on the many performances and memories throughout the years, what has been a constant is the enthusiasm our audiences have shown for this process of bringing brand new music to life. No matter if the music is experimental, more traditional, or even unclassifiable, the efforts of the composers and performers has always been valued and appreciated. Thank you to our audience for their continued support of the creative arts, a vital component of the human spirit.

The New Music Ensemble at Grand Valley State University is an undergraduate ensemble that promotes the music of our time through commissions, tours, recordings, collaborations, outreach events, and workshops. Founded in 2006 by its director Bill Ryan, the ensemble not only prepares students for careers that include contemporary music, but helps them to become exceptional educators, advocates, and leaders in the field.

This event is made possible each year with the generous support of Larry and Elaine Rutowski Shay.

The Paris of Toulouse-Lautrec, Bonnard, and Vuillard

For many people, the posters of Toulouse-Lautrec and Bonnard are emblematic of lithography in fin-de-siècle Paris. Also included were lithography-enlivened book jackets, advertisements, sheet music, literary journals, as well as humor magazines.

Many of the images in this exhibition reflect the late 19th-century artists' indebtedness to Japanese woodblock prints and photography. French artists enthusiastically appropriated design strategies long used by Japanese printmakers including a-symmetry, flat color, contour line, and unusual points of view.

1st Prize: Adam Cuthbert
2nd Prize: Tyler Smith
3rd Prize: Ray King

Enduring Traditions: History and Meaning in Southwest Pueblo Indian Pottery

Over one hundred years ago pottery making by Pueblo Indians in the American Southwest was transformed from the manufacture of utilitarian objects for everyday use to craft production for the tourist trade. Featured in this exhibition are distinctive ceramics from several pueblos, collected in the late 19th through the mid 20th century, including works by Maria Martinez, one of the most famous Native American potters of the 20th century. This is the first of a series of exhibitions planned by the GVSU Art Gallery that will focus on the rich diversity of the Native American cultures of the Americas. (works created in collaboration with student choreographers)

1st Prize: Nick Ortquist
2nd Prize: Ashlee Busch
3rd Prize: Ashlee Busch
Audience Prize: Nick Ortquist

Judges: Henry Matthews, Pablo Mahave-Veglia, Calin Radulescu, John Schuster-Craig, Kathryn Stieler

Ravines Revisited

Photographic essays by GVSU faculty artists Dellas Henke, Stanley Krohmer and Anthony Thompson, explored the beauty and complexity of the landscape, the effects of erosion and our complex relationship to the Allendale Campus Ravines. Complimenting the exhibit was work in a variety of media by students and additional faculty. Held in conjunction with Grand Valley's 50th Anniversary.

1st Prize: Adam Cuthbert
2nd Prize: Kaja Lill
3rd Prize: Kaja Lill
Audience Prize: Bradley Saniga

Judges: Shawn Bible, Henry Matthews, Todd Reynolds, John Schuster-Craig

Mystery, Magic, and Mayhem: Wonders from the American Museum of Magic

Magic has long been a topic of both interest and controversy that has enthralled audiences for hundreds of years. For some, it’s spiritualism and for others, it’s strictly a performance art. This exhibition of magic history provides a window into the worlds of illusion, conjuring, legerdemain, mentalism and escape artistry. On loan from the American Museum of Magic in Marshall, Michigan, are over thirty stunning graphic visuals and related objects associated with legends such as Thurston, Houdini, and Michigan’s own Harry Blackstone, Sr.

1st Prize: Bradley Saniga
2nd Prize: Mark Lyle
3rd Prize: Bradley Saniga
Audience Prize: Bradley Saniga

Judges: Ashlee Busch, Gayle Davis, Henry Duitman, Sofia Mahave, Henry Matthews

History of Space Photography | January 15 - March 21, 2014

From the earliest black-and-white photographs of the moon to the most recent images taken from the Mars Curiosity rover, The History of Space Photography exhibition features 50 noteworthy images from the last 50 years of space exploration. These stunning and beautiful visuals, including video projections of celestial animations, were captured by astronauts, astronomers, and data visualization experts. Grand Valley State University Art Gallery is pleased to share these historic cosmic images with you. The History of Space Photography exhibition is organized by the California/ International Arts Foundation and is guest curated by Jay Belloli, former Director of Gallery Programs at the Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena, CA.

1st Prize: Eamon Carmody
2nd Prize: Richie Arndorfer
3rd Prize: Ben De Leeuw
Audience Prize: Ben De Leeuw

Judges: Liliana Mahave, John Martin, Carrie Morris, Ellen Pool, John Schuster-Craig

River Tattoo | September 24 - October 12, 2014

River Tattoo is a 85' x 8' vinyl mural installed on GVSU's Eberhard Center for ArtPrize in Fall 2014. 

River Tattoo celebrates the Grand River and the Blue Bridge spanning it. It is made from thousands of pieces of adhesive vinyl applied directly to the glass. The vinyl shapes are based on ink drawings of animal-like forms, collages made from adhesive shelf paper, and photographs of ordinary houseplants, digitally hybridized, mirrored, and multiplied. The river flows through it in a pattern of rhythmic lines rising and falling around the bend in the building, with the bridge reflected in them. The mural’s clouds, its flora, its teeming bestiary of creatures both sinister and benign seem to inhabit the world reflected in the glass, suggesting that the space around us is full of possibilities we have not yet begun to imagine.

1st Prize: Julia Gjebic
2nd Prize: Ashlee Busch
3rd Prize: Weston Bernath
Audience Prize: Ashlee Busch

Judges: Christine Chamberlain, Jim Cogswell, Christian Gaines, John Schuster-Craig, Elaine Shay

Great Lakes: Image and Word | January 19 – April 1, 2016

The lakes and water systems of the Great Lakes are a majestic natural resource too little known outside of our region. This exhibit features sixteen poets and visual artists — each with a connection to the Great Lakes — In artistic pairings designed to result in new collaborative works with a Great Lakes theme.
1st Prize: Niko Schroeder
2nd Prize (tie): Niko Schroeder and Jack Sligh
Audience Prize: Niko Schroeder

Judges: Carla Hill, Alexander Miller, John Schuster-Craig, Dale Schriemer, Elaine Shay

Comfortably Numb | January 16 - March 31, 2017

Comfortably Numb is an ongoing archive consisting of clippings from magazines and other printed matter created by Nayda Collazo-Llorens. Over 2,000 framed images comprise this amalgam of sampled visual information functioning as detritus and fragments of data. The work explores our perceptual engagement with the incessant media overload that we seem to seek and endure.

1st Prize: Niko Schroeder
2nd Prize: Steve Rothstein
3rd Prize (tie): Niko Schroeder and Ray King
Audience Prize: Niko Schroeder

Judges: Beth Gibbs, John Schuster-Craig, Jeremy Kosmicki, Nayda Collazo-Llorens, Marcia Haas

Ebb & Flow: Explorations in Painting by Herbert Murrie | January 18 – March 30, 2018

For over 40 years, Herbert Murrie had a successful advertising and design career based in Chicago. As a result of his artistic upbringing and personal drive, he often returned to the studio in pursuit of a more spontaneous and freeing output. In 1988, Murrie began painting seriously and by the late 1990’s he was exhibiting regularly. Over the next 10 to 15 years evidence of his freed state leapt off the canvas. Controlled manipulation of paint and color bore witness to his understanding of design, while his process of working intuitively noted elements of the artistic movements he grew up with in the mid-20th century.

1st Prize: Reese Rehkopf
2nd Prize (tie): Reese Rehkopf, Tim Lester
Audience Prize: Reese Rehkopf

Judges: Monica Johnstone (Director of GVSU CLAS Communications and Advancement), Carrie Morris (GVSU Associate Professor of Dance), Herbert Murrie (artist), Christine Rener (Director of GVSU Pew FTLC and Vice Provost for Instructional Development and Innovation), John Schuster-Craig (retired GVSU Professor of Music)

Artwork in the Lobby Outside Louis Armstrong Theater, GVSU Haas Center for Performing Arts

This collection of artwork is on permanent display outside the Louis Armstrong Theater in the Thomas J. and Marcia J. Haas Center for Performing Arts. It includes prints, paintings, sculptures, and drawings by national, international, and local artists engaging a range of themes from the highly personal or surreal to traditional landscape and portraiture. For this 10th anniversary event alumni composers were invited to submit compositions alongside current students. The two groups were judged separately.

Student Composers:
First Prize: Christian Glascock
Second Prize: Noah Braley
Third Prize: Ray King
Audience Prize: Christian Glascock

Alumni Composers:
First Prize: Reese Rehkopf
Second Prize: Tim Lester
Third Prize: Bradley Saniga
Audience Prize: Reese Rehkopf

Judges: Aaron Doty ((Vice President and General Manager of the Grand Rapids Symphony), Shelley Irwin (host and producer for The WGVU Morning Show), Philomena Mantella (GVSU President), John Schuster-Craig (GVSU Professor Emeritus), and Lazaro Vega (Broadcaster and Jazz Director, Blue Lake Public Radio).

To view a recording of the entire performance visit https://youtu.be/rOGnwncAoK0.