LONDON Auction to feature paintings by chimp Paintings by Congo the chimpanzee are going on sale at a prestigious London auction house alongside works by Andy Warhpl and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. The collection of three tempera on paper paintings are expected to fetch between $1,130 and $1,500 next month at Bonhams Modem and Contemporary sale. Congo, born in 1954, produced some 400 drawings and paintings between the ages of 2 and 4. He quickly learned how to handle a brush and pencils. He painted within the boundaries of the sheet of paper, never allowing the paint to spill over the edge, and appeared to know when he had fInished a painting --by refusing to pick up his brush or pencil over the work. It wasn't immediately clear if Congo was still alive, a Bonhams spokeswoman said.

I can't say I have come to grips with Congo's accomplishment. I have a mind-grope headed toward the idea that chimps, and probably other animals, have archetypal images hard-wired into their brains, as we have. I call them urcepts. Also an innate universal feel for design. Maybe also an innate potential for action painting, for dancing strokes onto canvas rhythmically.

My main problem is figuring out where painters like Francis, Pollock, Gottlieb, whom I greatly admire, did more than Congo. I'm sure their paintings were more complex, and their oeuvres much more complex.

I wonder if Congo had seen any non-representational paintings before making his own. . . .

Some songbirds equal renowned composers at creating music. And whales. Or do they? I can't say I really know.

I'm safe. My illumages are all parts of mathemaku, and no chimp has yet made a mathemaku. I believe machines one day will, though. If they can play chess, they can make art--although there will be those forever sure that human beings have some secret mystical ability to do things machines will never be able to do, like the "creative imagination" Kasparov thought great chess-players have but not computers.

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