The Asian Elephant Art and Conservation Project

April 9, 2002 11:10 AM

The Asian Elephant Art and Conservation Project was founded by artists Vitaly Komar and Alex Melamid to teach domesticated elephants to paint so their works could be sold to support the elephants and their human masters.
posted by homunculus (5 comments total)

(Hit post prematurely) I love this story and I hope I get a chance to see an exhibition of the elephants' work sometime. The project was featured recently on 60 Minutes; 'Good for the elephants' indeed.
posted by homunculus at 11:20 AM on April 9, 2002

Saw this on 60 Minutes, as well. The question one of the observers had about the paintings was: How do the elephents know when a painting is done? How do they know when to stop?

But this was a great story.
posted by Rastafari at 11:25 AM on April 9, 2002

Pachyderm art is cool. I love the Thai Elephant Orchestra as well.
posted by zoopraxiscope at 11:27 AM on April 9, 2002

Elephants? Pshaw. You should instead be asking yourself Why Cats Paint, an expanding exhibition under the larger Museum of Non-Primate Art. A recent addition aids the connoisseur in dealing with fake works - of the nine paintings pictured, can you tell which two were actually painted by a human, and which one was actually painted by a dog?

(and no, I have NO idea if any of this real)
posted by yhbc at 11:50 AM on April 9, 2002

I know I'm late into this thread, but in case anyone is still reading, there's another interesting site of and about Elephant Art at www.artbyelephants.com. Not only will these guys will actually sell you an original work if you want some of that good nose-art for your walls, they run a competition to win one every month too.
posted by Gamecat at 2:14 AM on April 10, 2002