GRAND RAPIDS (WZZM) - ArtPrize will take over Grand Rapids in nine days and one of the pieces you will see is a giant sock puppet.
Artist Mike Simi's entry is called 'Mr. Weekend.' It will be on display at the Kendall gallery in the Federal Building on Pearl Street. The sock puppet is actually made from a robotic arm used in Detroit to build the Chrysler 300.
The puppet is 12 feet tall and talks about its former life in the factory.
"He mopes mostly. So he's in here talking to himself eight to ten hours a day," says Mike Simi. "There's sort of an interesting relationship between, like humanizing this robot and what happened to a lot of factory workers and people looking for work in the area. So he can relate, I guess."
ArtPrize 2012 begins September 19.