Patterico's Pontifications

12/6/2019

Artist Monkeys Around With Banana, Sells For $120,000

Filed under: General — Dana @ 2:22 pm



[guest post by Dana]

When an artist runs out of ideas but knows that the privileged beau monde still need to feel like the world looks at them as uniquely original and are willing to pay whatever it takes to make that happen. Or maybe it’s something more simple, like, there really is a sucker born every minute:

A banana duct-taped to a wall sold for $120,000 at Miami’s Art Basel this week — it may be the most talked-about artwork at this year’s event. Two of the three editions have been sold, according to Perrotin, the contemporary art gallery behind the work. The last one is expected to go for $150,000.

The controversial piece, called “The Comedian,” was created by Maurizio Cattelan, an Italian artist who had also entertained art lovers from around the globe in 2017 with his “America” 18-carat-gold toilet. However, the $6-million throne was stolen from England’s Blenheim Palace over the summer.

Emmanuel Perrotin, the gallery founder, told CBS News that Maurizio’s work is not just about objects, but about how objects move through the world.

“Whether affixed to the wall of an art fair booth or displayed on the cover of the New York Post, his work forces us to question how value is placed on material goods,” he said.

He added that “the spectacle is as much a part of the work as the banana.”

Irony all the way around:

Some critics argue this piece is a perfect representation of what the art world has become with its gaping wealth inequalities. Others, however, chose not to go as deep and appreciate the simplicity of the art piece.

(Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.)

–Dana

35 Responses to “Artist Monkeys Around With Banana, Sells For $120,000”

  1. Amusing.

    Dana (643cd6)

  2. The art world is a scam. Its all about the capital gains, baby. No one cares about “ART”.

    rcocean (1a839e)

  3. “ Today there is a peculiarly modern reward that the avant-garde artist can give his benefactor: namely, the feeling that he, like his mate the artist, is separate from and aloof from the bourgeoisie, the middle classes…the feeling that he may be from the middle class but he is no longer in it…the feeling that he is a fellow soldier, or at least an aide-de-camp or an honorary cong guerrilla in the vanguard march through the land of the Philistines. This is a peculiarly modern need and a peculiarly modern kind of salvation (from the sin of Too Much Money) and something quite common among the well-to-do all over the West, in Rome and Milan as well as New York.”

    Tom Wolfe – The Painted Word
    _

    harkin (337580)

  4. If you have 120,000 to spend on a banana, you probably need to be spreading your cash around more anyway. Also, you deserve what you get if you are spending 120000 on a banana.

    Nic (bad3df)

  5. I will agree that Florida Man, with or without $120,000 to throw away, is a breed apart, separate from the bourgeoisie and the middle class. Thank the Good Lord!

    Have you been to Miami Beach (that’s where Art Basel is being held) and seen the 200 lb plus women in thong bikinis, thong not string, strolling around? Smelled the heady scent of ganja, CBD, and vapes?

    nk (dbc370)

  6. Plus la change plus la meme
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_(Duchamp)

    Kishnevi (c277d9)

  7. nk, those are usually tourists from Europe or South America. Odds are, so was the banana buyer.

    Kishnevi (c277d9)

  8. this does not appeel to me at all

    mg (8cbc69)

  9. Is this copyrightable? Will the FBI (it investigates copyright violations) come after me if I duct-tape a banana to a wall?

    nk (dbc370)

  10. @9 Be safe, use a different kind of tape.

    Nic (bad3df)

  11. Speaking of Florida…..

    Outrage After Police Use Bystanders As “Human Shields” In Florida UPS Truck Shootout

    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/outrage-over-police-using-bystanders-human-shields-florida-ups-truck-shootout

    On first look this appears to be a huge clusterf**k.
    _

    harkin (337580)

  12. We never learned how many people at the Orlando Nightclub massacre were killed by the police and not the shooter, either. But they did prosecute his widow, so that’s some kind of justice. (sarc)

    nk (dbc370)

  13. Perez insisted that the suspected robbers, Alexander and Hill, were to blame because they opened fire on the officers.

    The two men were both released from state prison in 2017. Alexander was convicted of an armed robbery in Lee County in 2008, and was released in 2017, according to corrections records. Hill most recently finished a year’s prison sentence for a series of burglaries, state records show.

    “The people responsible for this incident were the two brazen robbers who went into the jewelry store in the middle of the afternoon, guns blazing,” Perez said.

    Perez said officers tried to slow down and stop the UPS truck on the Turnpike and Interstate 75, away from the traffic gridlock, but “the officers were met with gunfire,” he said. He added that “a couple” civilian vehicles were also struck during the chase.

    When the truck finally stopped — hemmed in by rush-hour traffic — officers had no choice but to rush in an attempt to get between the robbers and the other commuters, Perez said.

    https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/crime/article238116424.html

    Kishnevi (c277d9)

  14. “Some folks has more money than they does good sense.”
    – my Gramps

    Dave (1bb933)

  15. !20K for a soon to be gooey black drip covered in swarming Drosophila. Nice

    Angelo (39252f)

  16. wonder what it will sure for

    mg (8cbc69)

  17. insure

    mg (8cbc69)

  18. He will donate it to his private foundation and write it off his taxes.

    nk (dbc370)

  19. If he is in the art business, he could try writing it off as a capital loss, but I hate to think the tax rules are that stupid.

    nk (dbc370)

  20. Actually, even if he is not in the art business, and he bought it for the purpose of decorating one of his hotels, resorts, or golf courses, he could try writing it off as a capital loss, but I still hate to think the tax rules are that stupid.

    nk (dbc370)

  21. From the original link

    The artist reported no clear instructions for buyers on whether the bananas start to decompose. The Miami Herald reported that owners can replace the banana, as needed.

    So it’s really the duct tape that is worth $120k.

    Kishnevi (31ec7b)

  22. Kishnevi (31ec7b) — 12/6/2019 @ 8:13 pm

    That reminds me of a bit that a comedian (I forget who) did about having purchased the axe George Washinton used to cut down a cherry tree.

    Comedian: It looks in pretty good shape, doesn’t it? Of course the handle had been replaced, and so has the head. But it still occupies the same space!

    felipe (023cc9)

  23. “… his work forces us to question how value is placed on material goods,”

    Spoken without any sense of irony, apparently.

    Radegunda (7d930a)

  24. Mel Brooks knows the true price of art: he pitched Bananas for 29-cents…

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgB-VQfUVYM

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  25. Will be interesting to see what went down at that shooting.

    As when CNN used a cop who sat and did nothing while kids were killed at a high school to blame the NRA, the real story will probably take a while to get out.

    harkin (337580)

  26. I assume this is money laundering.

    Dustin (cafb36)

  27. Dustin (cafb36) — 12/7/2019 @ 8:16 am
    Makes sense to me. Also, I wonder about the billions made at the box office, worldwide, by mediocre films.

    felipe (023cc9)

  28. https://genius.com/E-e-cummings-foreword-to-is-5-annotated

    “Ineluctable preoccupation with The Verb gives a poet one priceless advantage: whereas nonmakers must content themselves with the merely undeniable fact that two times two is four, he rejoices in a purely irresistible truth (to be found, in abbreviated costume, upon the title page of the present volume). [is 5]”

    Cummings wrote that in 1926. Orwell followed up on the thought in 1949, with his dystopian novel 1984, when Big Brother tortures Winston Smith and tries to force him to state that 2 + 2 = 5.

    However, I think that Orwell misunderstood Cummings. The mathematical equation reads as tow puls two equals five. That is not what Cummings is saying. He doesn’t use the word plus, but rather times, and he doesn’t use the word equals, but rather is.

    Think of it this way. A male has a mind and body, that’s two. A female has a mind and body, that’s two. Together, these two (or four) form a union, which is greater than the sum of its parts, which is one. That’s an additional number, therefore “is” (not “equals”) five.

    Poets are difficult to understand. As are all other artists, painters, musicians, architects.”

    Blake writes: “A poet, a painter, a musician, an architect, the man or woman who is not one of these is not a Christian.”

    He’s right on that point, that Christianity is based of creativity.

    Who can understand or explain Mozart? Or Michelangelo or Van Gogh? Or any one of other numerous artist? They offer a perspective that defies convention. That’s what makes art.

    The “art world” consists of rich people who have bad taste. They way overpay for whatever strikes their fancy, meaning whatever they think is popular, so as to make themselves popular.

    Real, true art is revelatory. It’s about the human in reality.

    This trash is about common culture, with all its spectacle and defamation.

    Gawain's Ghost (6da1c0)

  29. Who can understand or explain Mozart? Or Michelangelo or Van Gogh? Or any one of other numerous artist?

    I’ve wondered if many people who are highly accomplished in performing great works of serious music secretly envy those who can invent popular songs that speak to millions, and remain popular over decades.

    The “art world” consists of rich people who have bad taste. They way overpay for whatever strikes their fancy, meaning whatever they think is popular, so as to make themselves popular.

    Do they really think it’s popular, or that it demonstrates their own special discernment, reinforced by a clique of people with similar pretensions? In art museums I’ve seen that visitors tend to gaze in rapt attention at masterpieces from centuries ago, and then rush quickly past the newer stuff — which is one kind of evidence that the old masterworks are better.

    But the relation between quality and popularity is a fraught one, of course. For the most part I take a certain pride in knowing that my tastes are not those of the lowest common denominator, but sometimes I’m at one with the crowd of 80,000 in the stadium who are singing or swaying or clapping along with a song, because the music moves me too.

    On another side of the spectrum, there’s Albinoni’s “Adagio” getting thirty million YouTube hits in a year (and then a more recent performance cut into the numbers a bit). It can’t be just the caveman hair.

    Radegunda (7d930a)

  30. Now this is Art.

    Radegunda (7d930a)

  31. This was on the front page of Friday’s New York Post (December 6, 2019)

    https://nypost.com/cover/covers-for-friday-december-6-2019

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  32. 7. Kishnevi (c277d9) — 12/6/2019 @ 5:01 pm

    nk, those are usually tourists from Europe or South America. Odds are, so was the banana buyer.

    The New York Post reported

    https://nypost.com/2019/12/05/this-120k-banana-is-just-one-of-the-ludicrous-things-for-sale-at-art-basel/

    that the buyer was acollector from France. A second banana was also sold for $120,000 to someone else, also from France. There were hopes of selling athird banana to amuseum for $150,000 – assuming it’s talking about the same banana.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  33. I just hope this artist doesnt expand into potatoes.

    urbanleftbehind (9622c9)

  34. Originally the artist wanted to make the banana out of bronze and resin. But he found it too difficult. So he decided to use an actual banana.

    Sammy Finkelman (fb61e5)


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