As reported by Bloomberg:
Arguably the most famous artwork of the past decade has found a new buyer. Comedian, a sculpture by the artist Maurizio Cattelan, consisting of a piece of duct tape and a banana stuck to a wall, has sold for $6.2 million at Sotheby’s in New York after more than six minutes of fierce bidding. The buyer is China-born crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun, the auction house confirmed.In an interview with Bloomberg following the sale, Sun said he was considering paying with the cryptocurrency he founded, Tron (TRX), but failing that with Bitcoin, which hit a record $95,000 at the time of the auction. (The lot was the only one of the night for which Sotheby’s would accept payments in crypto.)It’s also considered by many in the art world as a legitimate work of fine art. The New York Times’ Jason Farago wrote a lengthy defense of the piece, arguing that the work “is a sculpture, one that continues Mr. Cattelan’s decades-long reliance on suspension to make the obvious seem ridiculous and to deflate and defeat the pretensions of earlier art.”
The buyer on Wednesday night was purchasing a certificate of authenticity that gave them the right to manifest the piece as an official artwork, though Sotheby’s says they’ll in fact also receive a banana and a roll of duct tape as a sort of starter kit. (The work also comes with a detailed instruction manual for how it should be presented.)...Sun plans to display the Cattelan in his Hong Kong apartment, but unlike his paintings and sculpture, he adds, “it’s very easy to bring with me—that’s the beauty of it.” Sun says he’s willing to loan the work to “any serious players in the industry who want to borrow our artwork to display it anywhere. If Elon Musk wants it, I’ll let him put it on the spaceship to Mars,” Sun concludes. “The banana goes to Mars.”
Note the purchase is not of the banana per se, but of the concept of a banana duct-taped to a wall. The Guardian notes this:
The banana on auction was, according to the New York Times, bought earlier that day for just 35 cents from a fruit stand on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. That means the fruit’s value increased 15m times over the space of just a few hours. But then the banana is not what has really been sold here. Instead it’s the idea behind it, which Cattelan once told the the Art Newspaper was a comment on the art market itself...For his $6.24m – the artwork’s full price after buyers’ fees are added – Sun will receive the banana, a roll of duct tape, instructions on how to install the work – including information on how to replace the banana – and a certificate of authenticity. It’s this latter item that holds the work’s true value. Anybody can duct tape a banana to their wall, after all, but Sun can authentically exhibit such a thing as Cattelan’s conceptual piece of art.
I have conceded before that I am a total philistine when it comes to the art world. And I fully understand that this is the guy's money and he can do whatever he wants with it, but the money could be applied to so many other things in the real world. The fact that the super-ultra-rich can cavort like this in public basically making a parody of themselves just fills me with disgust. The Nonsequitur comic expressed it this way:
If the banana and tape have been replaced multiple times, the only thing (questionably) worth anything would be the certificate of authenticity. Sounds like the tale of George Washington's hatchet.
ReplyDeleteKinda funny that a piece of art that's worth nothing is being bought by a lot of krypto currency, which is worth.... nothing.
ReplyDeleteKinda a turducking of irony, hot air and useless power consumption.
Power distribution is being able to magnify such nothingness to be worth millions when sold in future for real pennies on the fake dollar.
DeleteDefinitely smells like BullS***!!!
ReplyDeleteComplete the quote - "A ____ and his _____ are soon ______"
ReplyDelete> but the money could be applied to so many other things in the real world
ReplyDeleteIt is not as though the money has vaporized when it changed hands. It's just in the hands of other people who can decide to feed some starving kids or buy my "Apple Nailed to the Ceiling".
IIRC, there are three of those banana artworks? and two of the bananas have been eaten?
ReplyDeleteI maintain that if you have to explain your artwork's significance … it's not art. It's a social studies project.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the artist has a fear of bananas? https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/nov/21/does-this-banana-scare-you-the-harsh-reality-of-life-with-an-unusual-phobia Does this banana scare you? The harsh reality of life with an unusual phobia
ReplyDeleteSpaceX is on the bleeding edge of art and real life.
ReplyDelete((More Anonymous login problems for my post. This reflects poorly on my technical chops.))
http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-111924a-spacex-starship-test-flight-six-banana.html
My browser flags that link as unsafe
DeleteAn alternative citation - https://www.space.com/spacex-starship-test-flight-six-banana
DeleteReady with another $6.2 mil in small bills, but I'm waiting for a dill pickle attached with deck screws.
ReplyDeleteIt's "art".... got you thinking and talking and looking at what is real
ReplyDeleteAnd he ate it
ReplyDelete