The universe is shaped exactly like the Earth / If you go straight long enough you'll end up where you were

Required reading today is Alina Stefanescu's indictment of Ayn Rand, whose aesthetics came a little close for comfort to Soviet Socialist Realistm (and not just by the boxy characters on her paperback covers). Great fun. Stefanescu made me recall an artist who tried to figure for a third art determinant party: democracy. Witalij Komar and Aleksander Melamid, contemporary Russian "Sots" artists (Soviet realism but ironic, more or less) started a project about a decade ago in which they conducted polls in various nations on their aesthetic preferences and painted the results.

It turns out that the People have left Rand and Lenin and their love of steel and jutting chins behind. Now, you might say that Komar and Melamid skew the field somewhat by including all the preferred characteristics in one painting (and all the discouraged preferences in another), but they're still on to something:

Using the data collected in the survey, they painted a pair of canvases of classic proportions ("the size of a dishwasher," the preferred choice according to the poll) and called them America's Most Wanted and America's Most Unwanted, including in each painting what the respondents said they wanted or did not want in a painting. America's Most Wanted features a historical figure (George Washington) and wildlife (two deer, a hippo, and some trees), but mostly blue water and sky, which cover 40 percent of its surface; and America's Most Unwanted consists of dozens of overlapping triangles and squares of different sizes and colours (mostly pale yellow, orange, and blue), surrounded by a soft border in black.

[. . .]

The results of the international polls are surprisingly consistent. Blue is the preferred colour of a majority of the world's citizens. Abstract art is overwhelmingly disliked, with the exception of the people of the Netherlands—the country that gave the world the geometric abstract artist Piet Mondrian. The Chinese answered the most questions with "undecided," but did express a preference for art that shows people at work rather than involved in a leisure activity, in contrast to the Americans, who prefer seeing recreational subjects. The apparent scientific basis of the poll not only lent credence to a host of preconceptions and prejudices but also seemed to legitimise the whole idea of creating democratically determined popular art, giving it an aura of objectivity that is antithetical to any kind of authentic art.

It turns out that the Earth's favorite artwork resembles a somewhat political Thomas Kinkade print. This link purports to show all the world's nations' choices for best and worst; thankfully, the link isn't working. Check here if you must. Given what the Market, the State, and the People are offering, I'm not sure where to turn.

Posted by Kriston at March 31, 2005 2:51 PM