There’s a nice Mia Fineman story in this morning’s NY Times about Russian conceptual artist Alex Melamid’s new art ministry. Read. (username lrrfartblog, password artblog)
Melamid, one half of the team of Komar and Melamid, who brought you “America’s Most Wanted” painting, Thai elephants painting and other hilario-serio stuff, is on a tear to preach art to the masses. (image is “America’s Least Wanted” painting)
In one of the more humorous aspects of the project, Melamid proposes projecting slides of art onto the bodies of the sick, thereby imbuing the the sick with art’s healing proprerties. He also proposes the viewer do full body calesthenics in front of artwork in order to fully benefit from its charms.
Best quote from the Fineman article. Says Melamid
All I’m trying to show… is that believing in art is no more or less absurd than believing in Christianity or Buddhism or Vitamin C.
Libby and I are major K&M fans from way back. We interviewed the duo in 2000 and wrote up our Q&A as a feature for the Weekly. Unfortunately the PW archives don’t go back that far. Here’s a Libby post on one of their recent efforts.
