The Best Art in Grand Rapids Is Outside the Museum
A street artist puts the GRAM to shame
Took a visit to the Grand Rapids Art Museum last month and found some genuinely incredible art. Not in the museum, though, hell no—sitting right outside on a park bench.
I was on assignment for another Enjoyer piece to cover the GRAM’s DEI acquisition initiative. Wasn’t sure what I’d find, but was delighted to see the Pride and BLM flags hanging right outside its window for an easy photo op. Boy, they make my job real easy sometimes.
I wandered through the museum listlessly, mostly uninspired. Never been a big fan of their collection, apart from a few notable pieces and the mid-century modern furniture exhibition. The nicest thing they have is the building, sort of brutalist concrete and glass on the outside but spacious and modern on the inside. The perfect place for curatorial angst to play out as they strive to fill up the space with globalist art acquisitions.
What I didn’t anticipate was encountering the best art I’ve seen all year right outside the museum. I was photographing the outside of the building when a man on a bench called out to me. He had a series of small sculptures for sale on the street. Homeless, by the look of him, the sort of man a city slicker is trained to ignore. Most people walking by did, and I certainly intended to at first glance.
His work caught my eye, though. After an afternoon feeling stunningly uninspired, his pieces astounded me. Small welded kinetic sculptures of figures in various scenes: cowboys, surfers, fishermen, parents, and children. I’d never seen anything quite like them—subtle metal forms perfectly balanced, twirling and moving around, each in a different way befitting the subject.
I got talking to the man, who told me his name was Tarzan. A fitting nom de plume for the maker of work that swings so fluidly. He told me he was homeless and lived most nights at the mission around the corner. I asked about his work. Where did he get the metal for the sculptures? How on earth was he welding them all together?
He retrieves scrap from small metal shops and other small businesses. He uses a small electric tig welder in the park in the middle of the night, plugging it into a street lamp. I asked him to show me, but he said it wasn’t with him, he kept it hidden away at the mission. A precious item, no doubt.
He asked for a smoke, and I was curious to know more, so I went and bought a pack, took one for myself and gave him the pack. We smoked together while he told me his story. He’d been a factory worker, a welder. The factory closed, he couldn’t find work, he became an alcoholic and ended up on the streets. Drifted for a time through California, came back to Grand Rapids, and has been living at the mission and making sculptures.
