WEBBOARD: Would you buy a banana for a million dollars? If you have that kind of money, you can bid on a piece that is part of Italian-born Maurizio Cattelan’s artwork titled “The Comedian.”
Read more: Modern cars are surveillance devices on wheels with major privacy risks
No, it is not a banana made of pure gold; it’s your regular old edible banana, stuck to the wall with a piece of tape.
Cattelan, a conceptual artist known for his satirical and provocative work, caused a stir with this work at the Art Basel Miami Beach art fair in 2019. Perrotin Gallery sold three versions of it with prices ranging from 120,000 USD to 150,000 USD.
‘Essential conceptual ideas’
In a 2021 interview with Art newspaper“To me, ‘The Comedian’ is not a joke,” Cattelan said; It’s a sincere comment and reflects what we value. At art fairs, speed and business rule, so I see it like this: If I have to go to the fair, I can sell a banana like everyone else sells their paintings. I can play within the system, but with my rules.”
The work has been the talk of the art world for some time, with some critics calling it an excellent commentary on consumerism and art itself, and others calling it an excellent commentary on consumerism and art itself. that this was one of the worst works displayed at the fair that year.
And now it’s being auctioned by Sotheby’s New York, which estimates it will sell for $1-1.5 million. But don’t worry: the winning bidder won’t get moldy fruit or even preserved fruit: What they’ll get is a fresh banana, a roll of duct tape, and detailed instructions on how to display the work, along with a certificate of authenticity.
Much like NFTs, what you’re buying is not the actual, physical work created by the artist’s hand, but the idea of the artwork – after all, that’s what conceptual art is all about. concept.
“If at its core, ‘The Comedian’ questions the concept of the value of art, then the work’s offering at auction this November will be the ultimate realization of this conceptual idea. its weakness – the public will ultimately have a say in deciding its true value. ”, David Galperin, head of contemporary art auction house Americas, said in a statement.
A banana is on another level
One of Cattelan’s colleagues, Georgian performance artist David Datuna, found nutritional value in the work: At Art Basel Miami Beach, he peeled a banana and ate it, in an artistic intervention art he named “Hungry Artist”.
In a 2019 interview with Guardian After that action, Datuna criticized the work being sold at too high a price, but said of Cattelan: “I think he is a genius. Art is about comedy, about joy, about tragedy, about emotion. He plays this game very well. I love Andy Warhol’s banana, but I think Cattelan took the banana to another level.”
American pop artist Andy Warhol, who had a background in advertising, created almost fetish objects from common household items, including bananas.
Warhol used this motif for the iconic album cover of “The Velvet Underground & Nico,” creating a yellow banana peel sticker that peels off to reveal a strange pink fruit underneath.
However, unlike Cattelan’s banana, where the high selling price was determined by its scarcity, Warhol intended his work to be endlessly reproducible and suitable for the mass market.
In true Warholian style, he never copyrighted that iconic banana image, leaving the door wide open for other artists to use it.
One of them is German artist Thomas Baumgärtel, who has spray-painted his Warhol version of bananas on the facades of more than 4,000 museums and galleries worldwide since 1986, turning the yellow fruit into a kind of artistic expression.
Sometimes a banana is more than just a banana
Bananas are often used to create symbolic effects in art. Its phallic shape has made it a code for male sexuality – as in Warhol’s work mentioned above – but also in the works of artists such as Frida Kahlo, while its tropical origins making it a useful foreign element for European artists.
Both of those elements are on display in “Consumer Art,” a video and photo work from the 1970s by pioneering Polish feminist artist Natalia LL, who depicts a model eating several dishes slowly and sensually, including a banana.
That work was provocative not only because of its sensuality – which led the Polish National Museum to remove it from exhibition in 2019, causing widespread ridicule – but also because of the time it was created. In addition, bananas are a luxury item in Poland, then part of the Polish economy. Soviet bloc.
With climate change and fungal pathogens threatening some banana crops and driving up prices, the fruit could once again become a luxury item.
Read moe: What is Bluesky social media platform?
And then Maurizio Cattelan’s million-dollar duct tape banana doesn’t seem so unreasonable anymore.