MIAMI (The Associated Press)—It's the first commandment of museum visiting: Thou shalt not touch. Licking a painting, it would seem, would be equally taboo. But this weekend, visitors to an international art show are invited to place flavored strips representing paintings and photos on their palates.

Visitors to Visionaire art magazine's ''taste bar'' are offered postage-stamp-sized strips that dissolve like film breath mints. They were developed in conjunction with artists, and the artwork paired with each flavor is displayed menu-like above the bar.

''It's very Willy Wonka,'' said John Steele of Visionaire, likening the exhibit to the scene in Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, where a character experiences a three-course meal in a stick of gum.

Visionaire and New York-based International Flavors & Fragrances Inc. spent about a year on the project. The resulting 12 collaborations include Mommy, a condensed milk flavor accompanied by a photo of a woman's breast by Yoko Ono.

There also are highly conceptual tastes like Power, the flavor of sea spray and sweat envisioned by surfer Laird Hamilton and accompanied by a photo of his back.

Visitors have reacted with both delight and disgust to the pairings.

''This is astounding. It's a lot more interesting than getting Time or Newsweek in your mailbox,'' said Henry Stolar, 66, as he asked about subscribing to Visionaire magazine.

Some visitors, however, wanted to know the point of the collaboration. Dieter Kiefer, 55, of Switzerland, wasn't shy about his distaste for the orange blossom and pepper flavor of Exotic, holding his hand to his chest and coughing. ''This one is awful,'' he said. Still, he acknowledged that he'd remember the experience.

Artist Jenny Holzer said she was surprised people were even tasting her creation, ''Adrenaline,'' the flavor of jet fuel and metal, paired with a piece of her word art.

''There have been all kinds of people lining up to have nastiness placed in their mouth like a communion wafer,'' Holzer said.

Most visitors opted for milder flavors like Summer, which one woman said reminded her of a cruise she took. This is hardly the first time artists have gone gustatory, according to Alanna Heiss, director of New York's P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center. A group called the ''Futurists'' created whole menus of food. Performance artists have used chocolate and raw meat.

''Food and artists go together,'' Heiss explained. ''You can never find an artist far from a good restaurant.'' The edible art is Visionaire's second collaboration with IFF. In 2003 the two joined to produce an issue of the magazine with 21 fragrances paired with images. The scents included Drunk, Success and Gigabyte, based on the smell of an Apple computer's packaging.

Cecilia Dean, a founding editor of Visionaire, says she hopes the magazine will eventually get to another sense.
''Hopefully in a couple years we'll have a sound issue,'' Dean said.

Art with an aftertaste is on display through Dec. 5. It will move to Visionaire's exhibition space in New York in mid-December and remain on display through the beginning of February.

By Jessica Gresko, Copyright 2005 Associated Press