Dumbo NYC

Notes from the DUMBO, Brooklyn NY neighborhood


Elephant to Participate in Dumbo Arts Festival This Weekend

September 25th, 2007


 (Photo credit: Komar & Melamid archive)

*Exclusive*
We just got word that artist, Dondi (not Dumbo), who in the Thai tradition will be painting and playing a harmonica in an art performance will be one of the highlights of the 11th Annual Dumbo Art Under the Bridge Festival this weekend. By the way, Dondi is an elephant! Elephant art, inspired by artist Vitaly Komar will be painting and performing on Sat and Sun from 1-5pm on at the intersection of Main and Water Streets.

Artists Komar and Melamid started another project called “Elephant Art,” whose unlikely genesis was the Thai government’s 1990 restrictions on logging. That move put many elephants and their handlers out of a job, so to help them Komar and Melamid founded the nonprofit Asian Elephant Art & Conservation Project in 1997…

It was in this context that Komar and Melamid opened the first “elephant art academy” in Lampang, Thailand, in 1998. Since then the two artists, together with the animals’ handlers, have been teaching elephants how to paint. The results have been astonishing. In 2000, at a Christie’s auction in New York, paintings by the academy’s elephants fetched between $350 and $2,200.

What: Painting Elephant In Dumbo @ The 11th Annual Art Under the Bridge Festival
When:
     Saturday, September 29th, 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
     Sunday, September 30th, 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Where: Intersection of Main Street and Water Street, DUMBO, Brooklyn (Rain Location only: 16 Main Street inside Galapagos performance space)

{ELEPHANT TO DUMBO Calendar Listing (pdf)}
{Komar & Melamid’s Asian Elephant Art and Conservation Project—Online }
{elephantart.com}

Filed in Dumbo Art, Dumbo Events at 1:17 pm
Comments
  • DOT
    Very cool! Can't wait for the festival...
  • DumboRez
    I would hate to be the person picking up that poo poo!
  • DumboPainter
    This is SO depressing. It is things like this that often enhance the idea of the artist as bumbling idiot and that what they make, especially if it is abstract, could be made by anyone, or anything for that matter. What a joke! I'm sure you could put a piano in front of the elephant and he could hit the keys with his trunk too, but would you call it music? This is up there with child "prodigies" that make "abstract" paintings. Until the elephants (or children) start making actual, sophisticated decisions, and not just do what they've been told, I'm not buying it.
  • I understand what you are saying but I feel that way about "celeb" children's books and art and other not so great stuff that gets sold because it is by someone famous (and obviously sub-standard, some "famous" people do have many talents). For me the way I see this (and maybe others do too) is not so much serious art but the admiration of creatures so large and somewhat mysterious to people, and owning something that this big mammal made that is actually dainty and pretty and knowing something not even human put brush to canvas. To me it is interesting because wildlife did it, not because it will replace REAL artists and their art. It also helps these big innocent creatures survive.
    TLLT
    http://www.theworldaround.us
  • PC
    I have to agree. This is BS. Sponsored by Walentas, what a surprise.

    So not only did noone promote this festival but now we get to walk around friggin elephant poop. Thanks Mr. Walentass.
  • DumboPainter
    Yes it is great that the elephants are being saved (really), and how nice to be able to connect to big mysterious creatures, but my point is that when you have a major arts festival/event, one that claims to be the biggest in the city, where hundreds (thousands?) of hard working artists are opening their doors and putting themselves out there for public interaction (and scrutiny), the "circus spectacle" of a painting elephant ultimately hurts the artists who work so hard to really, passionately make art. We've all witnessed the people in museums who scoff when they get to the "abstract" art section, just imagine what people are supposed to think when they see a sweet innocent elephant making an abstract painting, and then they visit a studio or a gallery and see an artist's serious attempt at abstract painting. It gets right back to the all too often response of "my kid (orin this instance an elephant) could've done that." Save the elephant for the next Dumbo Block Party and let the real artists have their day!
  • Yeah I see what you mean now, but probably the person making fun of seeing Elephants painting and then a real artist's vision and scoffing would have laughed anyway. They just now have an example to point to, I think that type would have never been enlightened to begin with no matter what beauty they observed- but yeah, maybe these wonderful creatures should have been a seperate wildlife event. I just know that I and hopefully others can keep it in perspective.
    TLLT
    http://www.theworldaround.us
  • uh oh
    wait.
    all you elephant haters: where was the outcry over tillamook cheddar? or was there none?
    somehow a terrier making art for sale appeals more to us than the neighborhood animal mascot wielded by the big bad developer? sweet: woof woof.
  • PC
    tillamook cheddar? huh? a terrier trying to paint is just as stupid - FYI.
  • Waterstreet
    To DumboPainter: The Dumbo Arts Festival is about anything but art. It is now, and always has been, nothing but a real estate showcase for Walentas properties. I know more than a few artists who stopped opening their studios because of all the crass visitors with their insipidly idiotic comments of "nice space" "great view" "love your floors" "wow,high ceilings!" The inclusion of the elephant is in keeping with this. It's being used to promote the moniker of the neighborhood, not art, and it's meant to appeal to Dumbo parents and their spoiled rotten rugrats -- "Look, Tyler, see the elephant." Then, after the kiddies are done with the poor elephant, they can go visit Jane's Carousel of Self-Indulgence. The literature put out by the Dumbo Arts Center this year, says it best: "hundreds of artists welcome the public into their studio spaces to get a behind the scenes look at the old factory buildings." It explains why one of the most important public artists in the world, Tom Otterness, who was evicted by Walentas from 55 Washington, before being booted out of a Guttman property on Plymouth, finally just up and left.
  • DumboPainter
    Yeah Waterstreet, it all makes perfect sense. I was only being hopeful for the artists that do open their studio, and I have always been suspicious of artistic animals and child art prodigies because they often (conveniently) make abstract art. Being an abstract painter, this drives me crazy! Anyway, my doors will definitely be closed this weekend...
  • Publius
    The very fact that this discussion is even being had is a testament to the situation in the neighborhood. Support for the arts is eroding, and it is time that an actual organization was put together FOR artists, rather than just anothe Walentas front... Perhaps an alternative to the DAC is finally in order.

    What's next? Dogs playing cards?
  • Didi
    "It is things like this that often enhance the idea of the artist as bumbling idiot"

    Probably not. But the comments here enhance the idea of the artist as a whiny killjoy.
  • Jacinta Lynch
    So Dumbo artists are holy victims? I left Dumbo for the Navyyard after getting screwed over by two artists in sublet/share arrangements in Dumbo. Last night I saw a terrific performance by Duran Jackson, an amzing installation at Video Dumbo on Front St. and A.K Burns super cool works in a show at DAC. The biggest downer for me is at Rebar, where "artists" - male of course - are running a weekend Drawathon for $50 a head, use the word "nudity" on every flyer and call it an art event, which serves artists, when it's nothing more than a sleazy tits 'n beer show. Oh yeah, I hear Tom Otterness is now collaborating with Walentas on a project.
  • Agreed
    Jacinta Lynch:

    Have to agree with you; the Draw-a-thon is way lame. Take an academic exercise that went out of fashion with Thomas Eakins and spice it up with some melodramatic tableaux and 21st-century objectification. Yawn.
  • AislingFitzpatrick
    Jacinta: If, for you, the biggest downer in Dumbo is the nude drawing at Rebar, you really have no idea what is happening in Dumbo. No one is implying that Dumbo artists are "holy victims." The only thing that was said above is that the arts festival is not about art, but rather the gross promotion of real estate. Anyone who says otherwise is naive beyond comprehension or a shill (knowing or not) for developers. Your thinly-veiled promotion of DAC says all I need to know about you. As an aside, having made the rounds today in support of the artists who have generously opened their studios, one glaring difference I notice this year from years past, is that it was difficult to come upon Festival maps because DAC (particularly under their new leadership) does such a horrible job of promoting open studios. The festival this year is more of a street fair than it's ever been. Note the elephant.
  • I actually went...
    How predictable - all knee jerk reaction, all the facts wrong and you've missed the point completely. The event invited the droves of people eating cheese in front of Foragers, staring up an elephant's ass and wondering how long before your studio is converted so they could buy it to actually make some art. There was nothing sleazy about it. I went and it was all about community, making art, having fun and trying something different. You should really check it out sometime.

    Peace out.
    (p.s. it only cost $10)
  • jane
    I went to the draw-a-thon it was the only thing in the nieghboorhood were i felt artists from dumbo were gathering to make art....get your head out your a** and check out the draw-a-thon and find creativity in abundance
    dumbo is doomed and soho is coming
    i agre that the new dac peole really f***ed up the art fair and had a dumbo craft fair....where any of the video artists from dumbo? was the elephent from dumbo???/
    why dont they reach out to the ten last dumbo artists and throw a real festiva;/./////and besides that was the music?>
    it was at the draw-a-thon and music is art!!!!!!!!!!!!
  • just do it
    "genius is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration"

    why don't the artist that are complaining throw a festival that is art worthy?

    also, does walentas still give rent subsidies to artist? that's kinda cool, no?
  • Jacinta Lynch
    I am checking out Cuba and N. Korea so that by making art I never have to worry that it increases the value of anyone's property.
  • Jacinta Lynch
    ps: u r wrong. My support of DAC is not thinly veiled - it is explicit. As is my support for smack mellon and st. ann's - the other fronts for the evil walentas empire. Sounds like u have personal scores to settle. Bye.
  • Agreed
    Jacinta Lynch:

    The art's in the analysis. You rule.
  • mike alan
    this is all verry sad....glad to move my event.
  • Chow
    Good riddance.
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