Give an elephant a paintbrush and call it art. Give an elephant a paintbrush, team her up with two artists and call it collaboration.
Such was the genesis of a current exhibit at the University's Museum of Art and the topic of debate at a symposium last night called "The Possibilities and Limits of Collaboration."
The collection that opened Sept. 9 and runs until Oct. 13 is the first public exhibition of the work of Komar, Melamid and Renee.
The five paintings were created through the "collaboration" of two famous artists in their own right, Vitaly Komar and Alex Melamid, and Renee, the African elephant.
Komar and Melamid first found out about Renee, the painting elephant, a few years ago while visiting the University. In July 1995 the two artists ventured to Renee's home at the Toledo Zoo to work with her for a week on a series of paintings.
"We followed Renee," Melamid said. "She taught us more than we taught her. We really felt like one organism."
As expected, the exhibit raised questions and uncertainty. The symposium was held to investigate whether the collection can truly be classified as art or a collaboration.
The symposium's panel consisted of the artists Komar and Melamid; Don Redfox, elephant manager at he Toledo Zoo; Barbara Smuts, associate professor of anthropology and philosophy; and Sally Vallongo, art critic for The Toledo Blade. The symposium was moderated by Museum Director William Hennessey.
The panelists had differing views of how to interpret the painting elephant and the collaboration.
"The painting is one of the things we do as an enrichment tool," Redfox said. "I look at the painting more as an enrichment behavior than as an expression of (Renee's) inner feelings. As far as I am concerned she does it because I give her carrots for it."
But the artists insisted there is nothing unusual about an elephant or any other animal expressing artistic tendencies.
"You say it's funny that the elephant has a brush in its trunk, but someone gave me the brush and someone taught me," Melamid said.
Komar said the elephant's behavior could be described in other ways.
"We can really call it a dance because it was a kind of common kind of art that not only humans are able to do, but all of the animal kingdom can do," Komar said.
Vallongo said this relationship defined the trio's collaboration.
"Collaboration is always about sharing power. In the process of the three of them working together I think they reached a kind of common ground," said Vallongo.