America’s most wanted artwork

Pablo Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907)

What is America’s most wanted artwork?

Newsweek recently asked the question, Which Is the Most Influential Work of Art Of the Last 100 Years? Respondents were given the choice of Black Square by Kazimir Malevich; One (Number 31) by Jackson Pollack; Fountain by Marcel Duchamp; Campbell’s Soup Can by Andy Warhol; or Les Demoiselles D’Avignon by Pablo Picasso. The answer? Les Demoiselles D’Avignon. A good choice; Picasso was one of the most influential figures in 20th century art.

In 2004, 500 art experts were polled to name the most influential modern art work of all time (basically the same question asked by Newsweek in 2007).  The result: Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain was ranked first, followed by Les Demoiselles d’Avignon and Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Diptych. Duchamp was the first but by no means the last to feature a urinal as a work of art.

Fountain by Marcel Duchamp (1917)

Another survey produced startlingly different results. David Galenson published an article in the Fall 2005 issue of Historical Methods (The Reappearing Masterpiece: Ranking American Artists and Art Works of the Late 20th Century) concerning a survey of the illustrations in textbooks of modern art.  Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty was determined to be the most important individual work made by an American artist during the past 150 years as measured by sheer repetitive representation in art history texts.

Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty (1970)

And finally we have the Russian émigré art team of Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid. Does anyone remember their 1993 telephone survey of Americans to find out what we want in art? 1,001 people were asked what they want in art—fine art, specifically painting. Soft curves or sharp angles? Brush strokes or smooth services? “Realistic-looking” or “different looking”? Serious or festive? Outdoor scenes or indoor? Wild animals or domestic? Famous people or ordinary? At work or at leisure?

Our collective responses were tabulated and transformed into a painting entitled America’s Most Wanted:

America’s Most Wanted by Komar & Melamid (1994)

To quote Marcel Duchamp:

In the last analysis, the artist may shout from the rooftops that he is a genius; he will have to wait for the verdict of the spectator in order that his declarations take a social value and that, finally, posterity includes him in the primers of Art History. 

~TAB