Komar & Melamid
Vitaly Komar: Born 1943, Moscow, lives and works in New York, NY
Alex Melamid: Born 1945, Moscow, lives and works in New York, NY
Bird painting in Ayutthaya, Thailand, 2000, color photograph, Courtesy The Asian Elephant Art and Conservation Project, New York, NY
Recently, the creative partnership of Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid has worked with elephants to produce paintings that simultaneously raise awareness of the plight of the pachyderms and question traditional methods for making art. In the 1990s the duo began collaborating with Asian elephants after learning of the challenges they face. Trained for logging, the elephants have lost not only their natural habitat but also their employment due to widespread deforestation and subsequent anti-logging legislation. Although there exists elephant sanctuaries for the unemployed animals, funding these ventures remains difficult. As Melamid states, “We gave [the elephants] the opportunity to have a second career, to become artists.”
Komar & Melamid went to Thailand in 1997 to begin working with the animals and founded the first of what would become a number of elephant art academies. The animals’ art has been sold in a variety of venues with proceeds benefiting the Asian Elephant Art & Conservation Project, a non-profit organization that grew out of Komar & Melamid’s venture. While this project draws attention to the elephants’ plight and helps facilitate the animals’ survival, it also expands traditional ideas of how art is made and by whom. Watching the elephants paint, the viewer realizes that creativity may not be limited to human beings.
To purchase paintings by elephants, go to www.elephantart.com.
