Elephant artists
The Sierra Club's Orli Cotel pointed me to the Elephant Art & Conservation Project that showcases and sells paintings made by the animals. Apparently, elephants in Asia are no longer needed by the declining logging industry so these domesticated beasts are "out of work." Artists Komar & Melamid, who had previously taught elephants to paint, founded the Conservation Project to help the Asian elephants. (Why not--some elephants play music.) The Asian Elephant Art & Conservation project's mission is to "promote and distribute the work of elephant artists to raise funds for elephant conservation." Orli interviewed the project's director, David Ferris, for Sierra Club Radio. Link to Sierra Club Radio episode, Link to Asian Elephant Art & Conservation Project
the latest
latest episodes
Nice pachyderm painting. I saw one of these a few hours ago in a private gallery here in Detroit. When the lady of the house told me how the art was created I laughed. Too loudly I'm afraid. But for Pete's sake, it was hanging next to a Ting and a Frankenthaler! Gosh it's a weird, small world. What are the odds that I saw a picture like this today twice?
Those are inscrutable odds.
the gods are warning you
Next to one of Helen Frankenthaler's pieces, eh?
I'm so bad, so I have to ask - how did you tell them apart, and which did you like best?
;-)
coop
These paintings, especially the more representative ones, are more made by the mahout(trainer) than the elephant. By choosing which colours to give the elephant, and gently pushing a tusk or giving clues in their voice, the close relationship between the two allows the mahout to guide the elephant.
The elephants do learn how to apply brush to paper, but any article claiming they have an artistic understanding is probably baseless. Elephants have poor eyesight.
I now suspect that much of 20th c. visual art was produced by elephants.
Wonder what species produced the poetry.
Although this seems really great and fun, it's actually not. What those elephants had to go through to be trained in the first place is literally torture.
The traditional way in Thailand to train elephants is to break their spirit completely and totally so that they are mortally afraid of humans. The way this is done is with the "phaajaan." Baby elephants are captured, put into a pen that does not allow them to move side to side, forward, or sit, and then for 3-7 days everyone in the village takes turns breaking the animal using sticks with nails at the end, ropes and hot irons. Here's more info: http://www.helpthaielephants.com/village.html
and here's a video of it: (warning, heartbreaking and graphic)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1AR_Zife-c
Elephants that 'paint' or 'play music' have all been trained in this fashion, in fact every single elephant you ride in Thailand has been treated in this way, and it's horrible. By supporting those tourist attractions, you are supporting the tortue of these amazing creatures.
Instead, when next visiting Thailand, or if you want to talk about elephants in Thailand, you should take a look at the Elephant Nature Park (http://www.elephantnaturepark.org/index.htm) and The Jumbo Express, which were started by Lek to save elephants that are old or injured. She is also working to create a new way to train elephants using positive reinforcement and love. Obviously these efforts are a threat to the traditions of Thailand, and yes, there are threats on her life because of this.
Do not ride elephants on those tourist treks. They are not weight bearing animals. Their spines are made to pull and push, but not to be ridden. And do not support 'parks' where elephants paint or play music. What the animals had to go through when they were young was horrible, and these are creatures that should be free to roam on their own and not be tied up and forced to perform.
At the Elephant Nature Park the only interaction guests have with the elephants is when we take them down to the river to wash them. They are not pets to be taught tricks. They are not beasts of burden to be ridden.
Coop, I think the mixing of human art with elephant art was simply for fun. The fact that it is in a collection worth millions is what's funny. Especially since she she likes to hear people say, "I love this one, who's it by?" L.E. Font.
Another coincidence, my wife just spent 2 weeks in Thailand and watched elephants paint at a elephant conservation center in northern Thailand. She brought back photos and I was in disbelief.
While elephant training can be brutal, the conservation project is not into those methods and the relationship of the elephants to their trainers is quite different than the methods portrayed in the post above.
The project is dedicated to saving and recuing elephants and creating environments in a land that is increasingly hostile to them.
Agreed, there is a brutal tradition, but there are two sides to this story.
and will unemployed elephants be killed if they aren't painting pictures?
Hi Jeff,
I'm glad she has a sense of humour about it.
coop
Komar and Melamid were visiting artists at UC Berkeley when I was there and I spent a semester hanging out with them every Friday morning. This was soon after they started this project. The book about it is brilliant and an entirely enjoyable read. The project is definitely intended to lampoon the art world to an extent while also sincerely about helping the elephants that remain in captivity without means to be supported otherwise. I almost bought one of the paintings in a silent auction but was sadly outbid. Some of the paintings themselves are quite beautiful as well as being artifacts from a brilliant piece of conceptual art.
Happy to see this on boingboing so many years later. Meanwhile, Vitaly Komar is busy pushing for the three-day weekend. While Alex Melamid is making paintings of hip-hop stars.
"While elephant training can be brutal, the conservation project is not into those methods and the relationship of the elephants to their trainers is quite different than the methods portrayed in the post above."
Respectfully, Microdot, but that information is incorrect. Although the conservation camp may treat the animals well, now. The fact is that every single working elephant in Thailand goes through the phaajaan when they are babies. All of them. The ones at the conservation camp your wife was at went through that, all the elephants logging in the forest, the elephants on the streets of Bangkok, all elephants owned by man in Thailand go through the phaajaan. It is something that Thailand is not proud of, which is why the conservation camp does not talk about it, and why information about this practice is so little-known.
Lek is trying to change the way ALL elephants in Thailand are trained, and for that she has been silenced, persecuted and threatened.
I understand that this is a complex issue, but the facts need to be known.
Just as a horse is broken before it can be a tool for man, so must an elephant. But the immense power of the elephant, its intelligence and its willpower means that they way they are broken is brutal indeed.
That which is not art cannot be judged as art. Elephant? That's the point isn't it? Rats running through paint, or naked girls rolling in it, then over a canvas. That's "art"? NO. It's not even decoration. It's not even novel. Shooting bullets full of paint is art for a day, but Raphael needed a bit more training than that.
Modern Art? It's as if the Top 40 rock stations all played Sputnik beeps all day in between their ads for disposable diapers.
BoingBoing has always been about nostalgia, and the "wow" factor of old stuff being much cooler than the iPod. But much of the last millennium of the OFFICIAL, BILLION-DOLLAR, NON-SUBVERSIVE, "art world" must be left out of that, since it was a money grubbing dash to try to provide unique objects of art that were RARE.
How die they achieve this? By making things that normal everyday people would HATE, even throw away. This goes way back to the (true) myth that literal rural peasants treated Van Gogh's work (nude studies as fireplace kindling) and paintings as ceiling patches. So NOBODY from them on dared claim to not "understand" novel art, lest they be labeled as dumb 1890s alcoholic peasants.
"Super cool. Super cool. Are you super cool? No, you are NOT super cool." - Yello
so nik!!! how do you feel about robert williams?
or shag?
So... Is there a reason why I should care if elephants are hit with sticks?
By the way, Jeff -- I'm not familiar with Ting, but hanging an elephant painting next to a Frankenthaler would make me laugh, too.
Bones: Yes. We get the message. Enough.
NikFromNYC, I actually understand what you're saying, and I think we agree on many points, but you need to calm down and not type in all-caps.
Boing Boing isn't about nostalgia, it's about cool stuff. The past has a large accumulation of it, so it turns up a lot.
Let me see how close I can get to the center of your target. You're talking about the high-end art industry redefining a work of art as something that's: (1.) singular; (2.) useless; (3.) intentional; (4.) an article of commerce, capable of being possessed; and (5.) vouched for by the right people.
Am I with you there?
I don't think the story about the peasants and Van Gogh's art is the reason people are intimidated by art that honestly looks foolish to them. First, I think that the power of art has been defused by defining art as something so sacred that it has to be segregated from daily life, and venerated at special, supervised installations. This has the convenient property of removing art and beauty as a consideration from the rest of life, which is the only way a lot of sheer industrial ugliness has been made acceptable.
Second, I think our society sends out two powerful signals on Radio Art. For most people, the signal they're constantly hearing says "You're not an artist." You can see this with schoolkids. If you ask a kindergarten how many of them know how to paint and draw, they'll all raise their hands. Ask again five or six years later, and only the "art kids" in class will raise their hands. (The kid in the back of the class drawing Ed Roth monsters in hotrods doesn't raise his hand because he isn't listening.)
The second set of signals on Radio Art constantly tells us that this stuff we're seeing that doesn't look all that artful really is art. Art art art. Really.
As it happens, I like a lot of modern art. Other stuff (in my opinion) really needs the help of that ongoing marketing campaign in order to be identifiable as art.
As a counter-example, look at Andy Goldsworthy. He's working in strange media: leaves, mud, ice, river rocks, whatever he finds. Very little of it makes its way indoors, much less into museums. But people who see it (or pictures of it) know it's art, and almost all of them love it, even though it's not sentimental or representational or any of those other deprecated characteristics.
I very nearly digress.
Anyway, back to those elephants. My Marxist friends would say that they usefully heighten the contradictions. My question is: if someone likes an elephant painting, takes pleasure in it, and generally experiences it as art, how can we justify telling them that it isn't?
Teresa said, "By the way, Jeff -- I'm not familiar with Ting, but hanging an elephant painting next to a Frankenthaler would make me laugh, too."
Here's a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walasse_Ting
The Knoxville Zoo sells paintings by elephants- if Thomas Kincaid paintings are called art I don't know why elephant paintings can't be...
I think a lot of the most beautiful and majestic wild animals are doomed; elephants, tigers, gorillas, polar bears. . . . our grandchildren will think of "tigers" and "elephants" as creatures of make-believe (Horton? Babar? Tigger?) like griffins and dragons.
I don't think these paintings will save them.
Sorry, that's just what I think.
As a friend of elephants, I too have to post something in their defense. I had Binky (a 24 year old Asian male elephant) sit down with me and post his thoughts on the issues of Elephant art, elephant mistreatment, and a few other things. Here's what he wrote:
*&OOKKLJJTTYGT^Y&YHHIGYUTI&^YUIJIKLLKMLKMJUTR^%$%#$$#R%TYYUGGH
You folks have it completely wrong. I have spent days and hours with the elephant artists. At the legitimate elephant camps, they are treated humanely and are truly taught to paint.
It is true, there is communication between mahout (handler) and artist but the elephant puts brush to paper and draws his/her own lines.
Read here for more info: http://anelephantshome.blogspot.com/
and visit us at www.elephant-paintings.com for more info.