Have you heard about the banana duct taped to a wall? Do you know how it has rocked the art world? Do you find it fascinating?
“…Anyone with basic motor skills can tape a banana to the wall. But this is conceptual art. So let’s consider the concept. “Back then, Cattelan was thinking of a sculpture that was shaped like a banana,” a statement from the gallery read, via CNN. “Every time he traveled, he brought a banana with him and hung it in his hotel room to find inspiration. He made several models: first in resin, then in bronze, and in painted bronze (before) finally coming back to the initial idea of
Duchampian in nature, the ridiculousness of the whole thing is perhaps what it’s all about.”
“There’s a reason it’s called Comedian, after all, a vaudeville reference to slipping on a peel.”
“The genius of Cattelan’s banana is that it draws out the mainstream media’s suspicion that all contemporary art is a type of emperor’s new clothes foisted on rich people,” Half Gallery owner and art dealer Bill Powers told me when we saw that work together at Basel.”
“Was it Warhol who said,
‘Art is whatever you can get away with’? Case in point.”
Whether this qualifies as art, well, that’s up to you. Art is subjective. I appreciate and value art when it is something that is beyond my scope of creativity, artistic ability, and more so that I found beautiful, that would hold my attention, and would come up on my thoughts as a day went on.
Sacha’s girlfriend Elena (who has her masters degree in museology) talked about “the banana taped to the wall” a few year’s ago. While she educated us about why this was art I flash-backed to when Chelsea took an obligatory art class in high school. Chelsea came home bothered because the piece she had worked on did not receive a good grade whereas the other Mom,” Chelsea said, “my classmate told me that she was sitting on the bus and just put a piece of paper beside her. She let her pencil move with the movement of the bus—back and forth, stopping and starting all the way to school. She turned that in as her artwork. It was just scribbling. I don’t understand. Why did she get a perfect grade, and I didn’t?”
I encouraged her, “Try this: just scribble on a piece of paper and let the emotions out. Don’t try to shape it or control it. Just feel it and let it flow.”
She followed my advice, and to her surprise, she received an A.
Chelsea shook her head, “From now on, I’m just not gonna stress about it. I’m just gonna slap something on paper and turn it in.” I couldn’t help but laugh and replied, “Thinking and creativity don’t always go hand-in-hand. If you’re trying to turn in something to get a perfect grade in art, chances are you won’t. Your teacher isn’t focused on technique. She’s encouraging you to express yourself. She wants you to step out of the box, scribble outside the lines, and see where that takes you.”
Taping a banana to a wall is that. A couple of cents, a creative twist, turns into millions of opinions and dollars.
How could three people buy the banana?
“It not the first time the price of Comedian has caused a stir. When it was first displayed at Art Basel Miami Beach, three editions of the work were sold for between $120,000 and $150,000 each, prompting the New York Post splash: “Bananas! Art world gone mad”. Yet affixing a “true” value to even the most traditional of works has always been tricky.
The buyer(s) aren’t actually buying the the work of art itself—it’s a banana, and in time it would be non edible- I mean – turned to compost. So if they aren’t buying a piece of art what are they buying? They are gifting the creativity, they are honoring the discussion, the creator’s idea of art. What a concept. To pay for someone’s idea, their inspiration. What do you think about that?
“When the banana goes bad, the owner can replace it, according to the artist’s instructions. It will still be considered a Cattelan.” Via Vogue
“The Italian artist and an absurdist, Cattelan in 2016 he replaced a toilet at the Guggenheim with a fully functioning gold one. He called the artwork America.” Via Vogue
“To many people, the concept of paying anything more than the value of paint on canvas is baffling,” says Melanie Gerlis, author of The Art Fair Story: A Rollercoaster Ride. “And yet there are plenty of people in the art world elite who spend thousands and even millions on paintings. Cattelan is pushing this idea to its logical conclusion. The buyer is big in cryptocurrencies, so clearly understands abstract concepts. And he is probably feeling more wealthy after the Trump crypto bounce. Obviously $6.2m is a lot to spend on a banana, but Sun is buying the story of Comedian, the publicity and his own version of how he wants to be seen as a collector, which are seemingly priceless.”
“It’s a provocation, it’s meant to be ridiculous,” says Matthew Slotover, a co-founder of London’s Frieze art fair and a fan of Comedian. “It’s a very basic, valueless object. And its attachment to the wall couldn’t be more simple and un-artistic. It’s an absurd thing to do and absurd that people would pay money for it, but that is very much a part of the work.”
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