Alex Melamid

Komar and Melamid both grew up in Moscow. Their educations followed the same path: they attended the Moscow Art School from 1958 to 1960 and then the Stroganov Institute of Art and Design, where they began their collaborative work. Rather than following the dictates of Socialist Realism,…

…team of Vitaly Komar and Alex Melamid, who became internationally recognized in the 1990s for a project in which they systematically—and ironically—documented what people throughout the world said they valued most in a painting.