Looking back at that title - I'm thinking it wouldn't make a bad name for a band: The Most and the Least. That and Asshat Enterprises. Or The Quick and the Single. I'm not sure how I feel about this band (named after a really good part of a really good book filled with really good parts) making a name for itself, especially if their tunes are, as I've heard, a little touch-and-go-feely-yourself.
Anyway -
A crazy pair of Russkies decided to see what would happen if, after enlisting a polling firm to collect data on what people liked and disliked seeing in paintings, they commissioned artists to create artworks based on that data:
In an age where opinion polls and market research invade almost every aspect of our "democratic/consumer" society (with the notable exception of art), Komar and Melamid's project poses relevant questions that an art-interested public, and society in general often fail to ask: What would art look like if it were to please the greatest number of people? Or conversely: What kind of culture is produced by a society that lives and governs itself by opinion polls?The resulting sets of paintings from countries all over the world can be seen here. The contrasts are interesting - and, as you might expect, it's the supposedly least likeable works that are the most intriguing.
The success from the exhibition of their collected commissions led them to do the same thing for music. Excerpts from he two songs produced, and an interview by my main man Ira with Komar & Melamid can be heard here (RealPlayer required.) The "least appealing" song sounds like something Beck could have bought the world with, had he written it.
Asshat Enterprises will be opening for him on the Guero tour, by the way.
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