They don't know art, but they know what we like

First the artists polled the public about their likes and dislikes. Then they created the works. The outcome? Art by popular design makes for a thought-provoking show.

By MARY ANN MARGER, Times Art Critic

© St. Petersburg Times, published May 5, 2000

SARASOTA -- It took a poll to define art that is poles apart.

At one end is contemporary high art, the sophisticated stuff few people see and even fewer understand. At the other is low art, the instant images that have to sell to succeed.

The poll is part of the show, "The People's Choice," now at the Ringling Museum of Art. The artists, Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, hired a research firm in 1993 to conduct a telephone survey of 1,001 adult Americans, asking them such questions as, "What is your favorite color?" "Would you rather see paintings of outdoor or indoor scenes?" and "Do you prefer paintings that have a more serious or a more festive mood?"

After expanding the poll to other countries and studying the results, Komar and Melamid produced the paintings on view to represent the majority's likes and dislikes. One for each country is labeled Most Wanted, the other, Most Unwanted.

The paintings are dreadful, giving another meaning to the term "low." But the concept of the show is not only high art; it is highly accessible.

The statistical results, along with essays and interviews, are in the show's catalog, "Painting by Numbers: Komar and Melamid's Scientific Guide to Art." Yes, art and science mix.

The show, now at its ninth venue, came about as an effort by the artists to get in touch with American society, "of which we're partially part, partially not," says Melamid in a catalog interview. The artists, Russian-born collaborators now in their mid-50s, came to the United States in 1978.

For the most part, national differences are subtle. Most people, regardless of homeland, preferred landscapes and the color blue.

To please the tastes of most nationalities, Komar and Melamid painted landscapes with plenty of blue, with trees on the right, mountains in the background, water mid-ground, and people in the fore, varying from bathers (Iceland) to ballerinas (Denmark) to working people (Finland, Russia) to children (Turkey). George Washington and Jesus also make appearances.

Americans wanted realism and outdoor scenes with wildlife. The artists obliged by painting deer, and since the phrasing of the poll question wasn't specific, they thoughtfully added a hippo. Results prove that we also prefer fully clothed figures in a dishwasher-size painting (other options: paperback size, television size, wall size).

Only the people of the Netherlands liked small abstracts and disdained big scenic works. What do you expect from a nation that produced such radicals as Rembrandt and Van Gogh?

What freedom this show gives us! We decide how we want our art in the most democratic way possible: by popular vote.

But is this really the way we want our art? Should art be subject to popular opinion? Who should decide what art should be, the artist, the market, or some haughty arbiter of taste? What is "good" art, and who is qualified to decide?

The show raises plenty of questions. And that requires thought. This critic noted that casual tourists, at the museum to enjoy its famed baroque collection, spent more time with this exhibit than they do with most contemporary shows visiting the West Galleries.

Does high art have to be elitist?

The front room of the exhibit is a reading room with books on specific cultures and on landscapes, and Barron's Statistics the Easy Way. Around the room are bar, line and pie-shaped graphs documenting breakdowns by ethnic and economic background. They can be read as abstracts -- irony intended.

Komar and Melamid visited the bay area in 1990 to participate in the printmaking program at the University of Tampa. Their work has appeared in group shows of contemporary American work at the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg and at the Tampa Museum of Art.

The show has the best Web site -- http://www.webmaster@diacenter.org/km/index.html -- of any exhibit to come to the bay area. Check it out before you go.

The artists say (in response to a comment on the Web) that the show is more about ideas than enjoyment. That says a lot, because high art has never been so much fun.

At a glance

WHAT: The People's Choice

WHERE: Ringling Museum of Art, West Galleries, 5401 Bay Shore Road, Sarasota (off U.S. 41)

WHEN: 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. daily through June 4

COST: Adults, $9; seniors, $8; children 12 and under and Florida students and teachers, free. Admission includes entire complex; art museum only is free on Saturday.

CATALOG: $24.95; brochure in gallery, free

ORGANIZED AND CIRCULATED BY: Independent Curators International

INFORMATION: (941) 351-1660 (recording) or (941) 359-5723

SPECIAL EVENTS: Today, May 12 and May 19, 3-4 p.m. -- Informal talks on the exhibit by museum director David Ebitz, in the West Galleries, included with admission