First came William Merritt Chase, then Pollock and de Kooning, then Schnabel, Close, Wilson, Fischl and Bleckner. Now come the chimps. The latest artists heading to the Hamptons will be taking up residence at the Chimpanzee Artist Foundation and they'll be painting, photographing and filming.
If the news that chimps have better short term memory than college students wasn't enough to raise an eyebrow, then the news that chimps will be taking up residence in East Hampton as part of an art theraphy program for them should make you at least scratch your head.
Audra Allen is the human behind this effort and, as she explains on The Chimpanzee Artist Foundation website, the "mission is to use art as a common language to bridge human and animal worlds together. Art is a language without words and allows us to communicate with our closest living relative, the Chimpanzee. Art created by the Chimps offers us a window into how a Chimpanzee sees the world we share."
Judging by some of the works on the site, Schnabel and company might have something to worry about, and if you see Larry Gagosian wandering around inspecting the art, don't be surprised. The chimps will be enjoying a degree of celebrity more commonly experienced by the famous artists here in the Hamptons: Peter Beard photographed them for Vanity Fair, they'll be in the Arts section of the New York Times on December 9th and in an upcoming issue of Smithsonian—and that's surely only the beginning of this primate press junket.
Stay tuned to Plum as we'll be talking to Audra and her chimps in the weeks ahead and there will be a benefit to support The Chimpanzee Artist Foundation on December 19th from 5 to 8 p.m. at The Ross School art gallery with boldfacers like Jay McInerney and his wife Anne Hearst, Chuck Close, Jimmy Buffett, Dick Cavett and Peter Beard expected to be in attendance.
The Chimpanzee Artist Foundation
Chimps Have Better Memory than Adult Humans [AFP]
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