Each year, ArtPrize has been a catalyst for conversation and change and for its fourth competition, and in 2012, you can expect more of the same. This year, the contest hosts nearly the same number of artists and venues as the 2011 competition, but will operate minus the presence of former Executive Director Catherine Creamer.

Throughout the years, opera has fallen into a certain stereotype: Fancy, expensive, formal, elite and ritzy. But Opera Grand Rapids wants to show the community that opera is not just a fat lady in a helmet with horns; nor is it custom for attendees to wear Victorian wigs, top hats or spectacles.

Chris Danner is excited to bring the national tour of The Addams Family to Grand Rapids in May. That's in part because Danner has called Grand Rapids home for many years.

With 30 downtown venues and more than 350 artists, the event is one of West Michigan's largest studio hops and invites guests of all ages to explore photography, film, paintings, glasswork and a new SiTE:LAB event.

In the artist's first major Midwest show since 2007, Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park hosts Essence: The Horses of Deborah Butterfield, an inquisitive look back on decades of Butterfield's work.

Farmers Alley Theatre became southwest Michigan's only year-round Actors' Equity Association theatre Jan. 12, by achieving Small Professional Theatre (SPT) status.

Grand Rapids Art Museum is hosting three Robert Rauschenberg exhibitions, one of which has only been seen in Paris and New York.

In a monumental three-part exhibition that marks the artist's first-ever solo show in Grand Rapids, the Grand Rapids Art Museum hosts Robert Rauschenberg In Context, At Gemini and Synapsis Shuffle through May 20.

After consecutive print shows featuring Audubon's Birds of America and Warrington Colescott's Cabaret, Comedy & Satire, GRAM Director and CEO Dana Friis-Hansen sought out something on a much larger scale.

The inaugural ArtPrize put Grand Rapids on the map as a place where art is loved and where conversations of art are fluent. ArtPrize 2010 exploded with more participants, venues and visitors and added the exhibition center concept.

This year, as the competition gears up for its third round, the emphasis may shift from what you see to what you hear.

• artprize