Canadian Art / Business Initiative Goes Global

You may have heard about the company DNA 11 that is making a big splash in the media with its innovative (but not necessarily Earth-moving) personalized DNA portraits.

The Ottawa-based company was founded by Adrian Salamunovic and Nazim Ahmed
less than a year-and-a-half ago.

DNA 11 has had articles published about it all over the interrnet and across a huge spectrum of print and other media. They started their own blog just this past September but the media they have received has been phenomenal.

The success of this art business, at least in terms of media coverage, is a study in itself. DNA 11 has been covered in numerous decor mags, Fashion Television, the Discovery Channel, HGTV, Playboy, Wired, the Washington Post, Moco Loco, CBC Venture and tons of others, right on through to the New York Times Magazine a couple of weeks ago.

This, despite the fact that one might have thought it should only be a matter of time before someone came up with this concept. Around the world, the thousands of scientists who worked and continue to work on the genome project over the past ten years or so have included a large proportion of young graduate students whose circles of acquaintances must have included young, up-and-coming artists. DNA 11's concept should have been a no-brainer. After all, even the ultimate non-innovative artist , Thomas Kinkade, was already signing his prints with DNA-impregnated ink a few years ago.

One gets the sense that the mainstream national media world, ostensibly so difficult for artists to break into, is actually desperate for material that they can relate to.

Although some of the articles refer to the founders of DNA 11 as "artists," their website doesn't mention any particular artistic qualifications for either beyond an inclination towards "art appreciation." Only a handful of Canadian visual artists have succeeded in attracting mainstream international media attention over the past few years (well, any time, ever), and even though some purists might scoff at calling these portraits art, or put them rather in a category with commercial consumer fads, there is no doubt that visual artists can certainly learn from DNA 11.

After all, what is art if it does not involve interacting with an audience?