Independent Curators International supports the work of curators to help create stronger art communities through experimentation, collaboration, and international engagement.

Independent Curators International supports the work of curators to help create stronger art communities through experimentation, collaboration, and international engagement.

Menu Close

401 Broadway #1620
New York, NY 10013
info@curatorsintl.org
+1 212 254 8200

Menu

The People's Choice

Curated by Komar & Melamid

In 1994 the artists Komar & Melamid commissioned a public-research polling firm to conduct The People’s Choice, the first poll on artistic taste in the United States. Individuals were asked approximately 100 questions on a variety of subjects, ranging from their consumer tastes and recreational activities to their knowledge of famous artists, and their preference for angles, curves, brushstrokes, and particular colors, sizes, content, and style in painting. As Russian émigrés, the artists were intrigued by the idea of the consumer-research poll as an outgrowth of American democracy. At the same time, their interest in democracy led the artists to ask what a genuine people’s art would look like. What is a democratic and populist painting?

Using the data collected in this survey, Komar & Melamid painted a pair of canvases, The Most Wanted and The Most Unwanted, including in each painting what the respondents said they wanted or did not want in a painting. The survey and the resulting paintings come from the artists’ interests in examining people’s underlying attitudes about art and what art might look like, while also challenging the faith that our society puts in statistics.

The People’s Choice was exhibited outside the United States and evolved into a global analysis of what people, defined by their nationality, look for in art. This exhibition brought together for the first time Komar & Melamid’s Most Wanted and Most Unwanted paintings from fourteen countries (China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Holland, Iceland, Italy, Kenya, Portugal, Russia, Turkey, the Ukraine, and the United States). This exhibition presented these paintings, as well as the Web’s Most Wanted and Most Unwanted, and a reading room with statistical charts and other data along.

 

Touring locations
Akron Art Museum
Sep 5, 1998 – Nov 15, 1998
Illingworth Kerr Gallery, Alberta College of Art and Design
Jan 7, 1999 – Feb 6, 1999
Nevada Museum of Art
Feb 24, 1999 – Apr 25, 1999
Santa Barbara Museum of Art
May 1, 1999 – Jun 27, 1999
Dunlop Art Gallery
Jul 10, 1999 – Aug 15, 1999
University of Missouri - Kansas City Art Gallery
Sep 3, 1999 – Oct 29, 1999
Minnesota Museum of American Art
Nov 12, 1999 – Jan 21, 2000
University of Arizona Museum of Art
Feb 5, 2000 – Mar 31, 2000
Ringling Museum
Apr 14, 2000 – Jun 3, 2000
Tryon Center for the Arts
Jun 17, 2000 – Aug 27, 2000
Bates College Museum of Art
Sep 8, 2000 – Nov 3, 2000
Morris Museum of Art
Nov 12, 2000 – Feb 4, 2001
Klemm Gallery, Siena Heights University
Feb 18, 2001 – Mar 20, 2001
Centrum Sztuki
Apr 20, 2001 – Jun 3, 2001
University Art Museum, State University of New York
Jun 27, 2001 – Aug 5, 2001
Museum of Art and History at the McPherson Center
Aug 24, 2001 – Nov 18, 2001
Morris Museum
Jan 9, 2002 – Mar 4, 2002
Curators