Banana sold for $6 million

Started by relm1, November 22, 2024, 05:46:16 AM

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Madiel

#20
Quote from: pjme on November 23, 2024, 03:02:51 AMthe work is of a piece with Cattelan's ongoing critique of the art world

I would frankly find this line quite plausible but for the sale, and the price tag.

Unless perhaps he intends to do something with the money other than line his own pockets.

A better critique of the art world is the person who submitted an AI-generated image into a photography competition, and refused to accept the prize. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/apr/17/photographer-admits-prize-winning-image-was-ai-generated
Freedom of speech means you get to speak in response to what I said.

Mandryka

#21
Quote from: pjme on November 23, 2024, 03:02:51 AMI found this reflection on the banana:


"Many of the responses to Maurizio Cattelan's 'Comedian' – the banana taped to the wall at Art Basel Miami Beach – take a familiar stance, decrying a fundamental superficiality or worse in his comic approach – intent to defraud, for instance, or a desire to 'put one over' on the audience. Jerry Saltz for one, fulminates against 'joke art, shock-your-Nana-art, art about art about art.'
However, there is also some more thoughtful commentary which recognises that Cattelan's comedy can co-exist with substance.In the New York Times Jason Farag notes the 'dismayingly common belief that all artists are con artists,' observing that Cattelan's 'purloined banana has offered the perfect weapon to those who think that contemporary art is one big prank.' However, he is clear that ''Comedian' is not a one-note Dadaist imposture in which a commodity is proclaimed a work of art — which would be an entire century out of date now,' and suggests instead that the work is of a piece with Cattelan's ongoing critique of the art world. He argues that the banana should be seen in the context of an earlier piece, 'A Perfect Day' (1999), in which Cattelan used duct tape to fasten his dealer Massimo De Carlo to a gallery wall, for the duration of a show's opening day, thus placing 'the art market itself on the wall, drooping and pitiful.'
And 'rather than lobbing insults from a cynical distance,' Farag commends Cattelan's 'willingness to implicate himself within the economic, social and discursive systems that structure how we see and what we value.' Because, although Farag doesn't say this outright, 'Comedian' is perhaps first and foremost a self-portrait. And, as Jonathan Jones suggests, it is a deeply melancholy one: '[h]e's the clown who has to go on clowning when he knows his jokes don't do any good.'
In place of his dealer, it is now Cattelan himself taped to the wall – taking on that disparaging label, 'comedian,' in a wryly reductive account of himself and his career. The impulse to deflate pretension that is so crucial a drive in his oeuvre, is equally unsparing when directed at himself. The poignancy of that personal sense of failure is augmented by the fruit's rapidly aging flesh, a clear acknowledgement of mortality (the notes to the work suggest the fruit should be replaced every 10 days). Interestingly, Cattelan first created versions in bronze and resin, which would have effectively lost some of that mordancy, while also legitimising the piece through craft or labour, making it less anxiety provoking.Taped as it is to the wall, Farag stresses the fact of the banana's suspension as a way of placing it within a longer lineage, thus emphasising the analytic processes behind the work – it is not a con, or a one-off stunt, but part of a considered approach.
He mentions Cattelan's 'Novecento' (1997), 'a taxidermied horse suspended from a Baroque ceiling like a drooping chandelier [which] collapses ... the martial pomposity of the Fascists', and 'La Rivoluzione Siamo Noi' (2000) (We Are the Revolution), a miniature doll of the artist, sheepishly suspended from a coat rack. And in his 2011 retrospective at the Guggenheim, Cattelan 'diminished all his previous works by suspending them from hooks in the center of the gallery, like laundry hung out to dry.' Cattelan's use of suspension as a technique is thus as valid as say, brush strokes and colour are to painting, and effectively transforms an object into something both ridiculous and pathetic. It is a comic procedure Elder Olson describes as the 'minimisation of the claim of some particular thing to be taken seriously, either by reducing that claim to absurdity, or by reducing it merely to the negligible in such a way as to produce pleasure by that very minimisation' (23). Olson opposes comedy's timely devaluation of overvalued goods to tragedy's belated bestowal of value, but this ignores the tragic potential of that devaluation or deflation: the loss of sublimity for instance, and the loss of mastery or authority. Necessary losses, to be sure, but still painful.

Cascone, Sarah, 'Maurizio Cattelan Is Taping Bananas to a Wall at Art Basel Miami Beach and Selling Them for $120,000 Each,' Artnet, 4 Dec 2019 https://news.artnet.com/market/maurizio-cattelan-banana-art-basel-miami-beach-1722516Farago, Jason, 'A (Grudging) Defense of the $120,000 Banana,' New York Times, 8 Dec 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/08/arts/design/a-critics-defense-of-cattelan-banana-.htmlJones, Jonathan,  'Don't make fun of the $120,000 banana – it's in on the joke,' The Guardian, 9 Dec 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/dec/09/the-art-world-is-bananas-thats-what-maurizio-cattelans-been-saying-all-alongOlson, Elder. The Theory of Comedy. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1968© Emma Sullivan, University of Edinburgh, 2019."

I think this is a load of rubbish actually -- and it's not often I say that. I'm more open to the installation than I am to ideas like " 'Comedian' is perhaps first and foremost a self-portrait. And, as Jonathan Jones suggests, it is a deeply melancholy one: '[h]e's the clown who has to go on clowning when he knows his jokes don't do any good.' In place of his dealer, it is now Cattelan himself taped to the wall – taking on that disparaging label, 'comedian,' in a wryly reductive account of himself and his career. "


Re suspension, I once weant to an exhibition at The Haywood Gallery in London which focussed on the line in contemporary art.  One of the most memorable things in it was a suspended piece of some sort of cord, it formed itself into a complex convoluted looping shape which seemed so beautiful, natural, perfect. Like a sculptural Klee drawing.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

AnotherSpin

There's no need to use pseudo-art objects to see that this world is fucked up. Just read the news headlines.

Kalevala

Quote from: Mandryka on November 23, 2024, 01:12:17 AMDo you like the Warhol banana more?




At least Warhol's doesn't attract fruit flies.

The other's instructions should read (after installing an unripe banana) to wait 4-5 days, remove banana, peel, eat, buy new banana, and apply new piece of duct tape to it and to the wall.

K

relm1

Quote from: Dry Brett Kavanaugh on November 22, 2024, 02:52:22 PMI just have remembered a philosophical discussion: If two artists made physically identical works for different themes, are they same work or different?

Ie. Artist A- abstract painting with red and blue titled "Anxiety 2020". Artist B- abstract painting with red and blue titled "Passion in Mexico".

I don't think so.  This happens a lot.  There was an interesting NOVA episode where they think they might have found a new daVinci painting.  So they got forensic experts in various art domains (EG: paint expert, brush expert, canvas expert, daVinci expert, etc.) to independently do tests if this painting was in fact daVinci or a student of his or a fake.  If it was a real daVinci, it would have instantly been worth millions but if it was a student/forgery, would have been worth comparatively nothing.  But it took the world's best experts at each of these aspects, and they really couldn't tell the difference it looked so much like an original of his. 

pjme

I thought - o no, please, no more banana... :-[

Here is a last (I promise) reflection; from "de Standaard"/ Ruben Mooyman, this morning:

"The buyer was Chinese cryptocurrency magnate Justin Sun. He was aware that the banana in question had been purchased the same morning for 35 dollar cents at a nearby supermarket. It could not have been otherwise, because the artwork is already five years old. A banana does not last that long.

The fact that the work was purchased by a crypto entrepreneur is probably no coincidence. The similarity between the artwork and cryptocurrencies is that both derive their value not from their physical appearance, but from an idea or concept that manifests itself in our brains. If people somehow become convinced that a banana can be valuable art under certain circumstances, then $6 million might be a very reasonable price. And if enough people are convinced that a secure piece of computer code can be an investment object, then $100,000 is a fair value.

In fact, assigning value to a concept without a physical appearance is quite universal. Take our hard-earned savings. They consist of nothing more than a few computer instructions on a bank server. Even when we go shopping in the supermarket, we use the same conceptual understanding of value. In order to be allowed to take that full shopping cart with us, we only have to manipulate a plastic disk that then sets in motion a bizarre and inscrutable system via circuits, wires and cables, the only physical manifestation of which is the invisible movement of subatomic particles. In comparison, a banana is actually quite concrete.

We are reassured by the idea that we can put the money on a bank server in the physical form of banknotes in our wallets if we wish. But banknotes are also no more than a concept, comparable to the miraculous increase in value of Catellan's banana. Because why would a piece of paper with a vertical line and two circles be worth ten times as much as a piece of paper with a vertical line and one circle?

Even gold has a conceptual value. Gold is much more valuable than other metals. For the price of 28 grams of gold, you can buy a ton of aluminum. But why is gold actually so expensive? When it comes to useful applications, aluminum is far superior. Yet nowhere in the world are there bars of aluminum in secure central bank vaults. Maurizio Catellan and Justin Sun have a good understanding of why that is."




DavidW

Aluminum is Earth's third most abundant element, and electrolysis has made smelting easy. Gold is rare. This is not about social convention or meaningless abstraction like that stupid banana. Do you think if you can buy aluminum foil at the local dollar shop it should be stored in bank vaults? That author needs to come back to reality.

Florestan

Quote from: pjme on November 23, 2024, 03:02:51 AMI found this reflection on the banana:


"Many of the responses to Maurizio Cattelan's 'Comedian' – the banana taped to the wall at Art Basel Miami Beach – take a familiar stance, decrying a fundamental superficiality or worse in his comic approach – intent to defraud, for instance, or a desire to 'put one over' on the audience. Jerry Saltz for one, fulminates against 'joke art, shock-your-Nana-art, art about art about art.'
However, there is also some more thoughtful commentary which recognises that Cattelan's comedy can co-exist with substance.In the New York Times Jason Farag notes the 'dismayingly common belief that all artists are con artists,' observing that Cattelan's 'purloined banana has offered the perfect weapon to those who think that contemporary art is one big prank.' However, he is clear that ''Comedian' is not a one-note Dadaist imposture in which a commodity is proclaimed a work of art — which would be an entire century out of date now,' and suggests instead that the work is of a piece with Cattelan's ongoing critique of the art world. He argues that the banana should be seen in the context of an earlier piece, 'A Perfect Day' (1999), in which Cattelan used duct tape to fasten his dealer Massimo De Carlo to a gallery wall, for the duration of a show's opening day, thus placing 'the art market itself on the wall, drooping and pitiful.'
And 'rather than lobbing insults from a cynical distance,' Farag commends Cattelan's 'willingness to implicate himself within the economic, social and discursive systems that structure how we see and what we value.' Because, although Farag doesn't say this outright, 'Comedian' is perhaps first and foremost a self-portrait. And, as Jonathan Jones suggests, it is a deeply melancholy one: '[h]e's the clown who has to go on clowning when he knows his jokes don't do any good.'
In place of his dealer, it is now Cattelan himself taped to the wall – taking on that disparaging label, 'comedian,' in a wryly reductive account of himself and his career. The impulse to deflate pretension that is so crucial a drive in his oeuvre, is equally unsparing when directed at himself. The poignancy of that personal sense of failure is augmented by the fruit's rapidly aging flesh, a clear acknowledgement of mortality (the notes to the work suggest the fruit should be replaced every 10 days). Interestingly, Cattelan first created versions in bronze and resin, which would have effectively lost some of that mordancy, while also legitimising the piece through craft or labour, making it less anxiety provoking.Taped as it is to the wall, Farag stresses the fact of the banana's suspension as a way of placing it within a longer lineage, thus emphasising the analytic processes behind the work – it is not a con, or a one-off stunt, but part of a considered approach.
He mentions Cattelan's 'Novecento' (1997), 'a taxidermied horse suspended from a Baroque ceiling like a drooping chandelier [which] collapses ... the martial pomposity of the Fascists', and 'La Rivoluzione Siamo Noi' (2000) (We Are the Revolution), a miniature doll of the artist, sheepishly suspended from a coat rack. And in his 2011 retrospective at the Guggenheim, Cattelan 'diminished all his previous works by suspending them from hooks in the center of the gallery, like laundry hung out to dry.' Cattelan's use of suspension as a technique is thus as valid as say, brush strokes and colour are to painting, and effectively transforms an object into something both ridiculous and pathetic. It is a comic procedure Elder Olson describes as the 'minimisation of the claim of some particular thing to be taken seriously, either by reducing that claim to absurdity, or by reducing it merely to the negligible in such a way as to produce pleasure by that very minimisation' (23). Olson opposes comedy's timely devaluation of overvalued goods to tragedy's belated bestowal of value, but this ignores the tragic potential of that devaluation or deflation: the loss of sublimity for instance, and the loss of mastery or authority. Necessary losses, to be sure, but still painful.

Cascone, Sarah, 'Maurizio Cattelan Is Taping Bananas to a Wall at Art Basel Miami Beach and Selling Them for $120,000 Each,' Artnet, 4 Dec 2019 https://news.artnet.com/market/maurizio-cattelan-banana-art-basel-miami-beach-1722516Farago, Jason, 'A (Grudging) Defense of the $120,000 Banana,' New York Times, 8 Dec 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/08/arts/design/a-critics-defense-of-cattelan-banana-.htmlJones, Jonathan,  'Don't make fun of the $120,000 banana – it's in on the joke,' The Guardian, 9 Dec 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/dec/09/the-art-world-is-bananas-thats-what-maurizio-cattelans-been-saying-all-alongOlson, Elder. The Theory of Comedy. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1968© Emma Sullivan, University of Edinburgh, 2019."

Irrefutable evidence for what I said before: some people have an infinite capacity to rationalize any piece of shit masquerading as "art". I believe the day is not far when a chamber pot containing real shit, stink and all, would sell for millions of dollars and some critics would go intellectual about how the shit signifies comedy's timely devaluation of overvalued goods, the stink ignores the tragic potential of that devaluation or deflation, the chamber pot is a protest against the necessary but painful loss of sublimity and authority, and the whole "work of art" is a deeply melancholy self-portrait of the "artist".




"Great music is that which penetrates the ear with facility and leaves the memory with difficulty. Magical music never leaves the memory." — Thomas Beecham

DavidW

Quote from: Florestan on November 23, 2024, 06:40:55 AMIrrefutable evidence for what I said before: some people have an infinite capacity to rationalize any piece of shit masquerading as "art". I believe the day is not far when a chamber pot containing real shit, stink and all, would sell for millions of dollars and some critics would go intellectual about how the shit signifies comedy's timely devaluation of overvalued goods, the stink ignores the tragic potential of that devaluation or deflation, the chamber pot is a protest against the necessary but painful loss of sublimity and authority, and the whole "work of art" is a deeply melancholy self-portrait of the "artist".

Both articles are verbal diarrhea that makes it clear that art critics are not worth reading.

Mandryka

Quote from: Kalevala on November 23, 2024, 04:39:24 AMAt least Warhol's doesn't attract fruit flies.

The other's instructions should read (after installing an unripe banana) to wait 4-5 days, remove banana, peel, eat, buy new banana, and apply new piece of duct tape to it and to the wall.

K

That reminded me of one of the more memorable Damien Hurst installations - you won't like it.

https://www.businessinsider.com/art-installation-featuring-flies-dying-shut-down-by-peta-2022-7
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

#30
Quote from: Florestan on November 23, 2024, 06:40:55 AMIrrefutable evidence for what I said before: some people have an infinite capacity to rationalize any piece of shit masquerading as "art". I believe the day is not far when a chamber pot containing real shit, stink and all, would sell for millions of dollars and some critics would go intellectual about how the shit signifies comedy's timely devaluation of overvalued goods, the stink ignores the tragic potential of that devaluation or deflation, the chamber pot is a protest against the necessary but painful loss of sublimity and authority, and the whole "work of art" is a deeply melancholy self-portrait of the "artist".







There are lots of examples of high value excrement art. I was myself dragged to a Private View in a very expensive Mayfair gallery a couple of years ago where there was a sheet which was full of stains made from the expressed milk of the artist. It was lauded as a feminist statement.  I'm pretty sure I've seen a sculpture, a self portrait bust, made of clotted blood, I can't remember which, in some big name museum. All these things are said to be interesting because they elevate into high value art what is normally considered a  base material. Alchemy.

Found it

http://marcquinn.com/artworks/self
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

pjme

Quote from: Florestan on November 23, 2024, 06:40:55 AMIrrefutable evidence for what I said before: some people have an infinite capacity to rationalize any piece of shit masquerading as "art".
lighten,up, guys. it is only art! and has been done before

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artist%27s_Shit



Kalevala

In terms of value, what would happen to the value of the banana "work" should someone decide to face the banana in a different direction and/or use a different color duct tape?  Or taped something else to the wall...like a different kind of fruit or a vegetable?  🧐 Hmmmm?

K

Cato

As I recall, the Incas could not understand why the Spanish were so thrilled with gold.

Ultimately, the value of gold, silver, diamonds, etc. is psychology: if nobody believed that a diamond is valuable, and will not trade a certain amount of work or coconuts or grain or whatever, then it is not valuable.

Moon rocks are very rare: should they not be worth millions or billions per ounce?  Maybe they are to some people, like the thieves who have stolen them throughout the years.

Other people might just shrug and see a worthless gray lump with holes.
"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

Florestan

Quote from: DavidW on November 23, 2024, 06:46:38 AMBoth articles are verbal diarrhea that makes it clear that art critics are not worth reading.

Indeed. And in my experience, the verbal diarrhea of the art critics (in general, not only in this extreme case) is equaled only by that of the musical critics.  ;D
"Great music is that which penetrates the ear with facility and leaves the memory with difficulty. Magical music never leaves the memory." — Thomas Beecham

Florestan

#35
Quote from: Mandryka on November 23, 2024, 07:03:07 AMAll these things are said to be interesting because they elevate into high value art what is normally considered a  base material. Alchemy.

Alchemy my a$$. Bullshit on stilts.

As they say: a fool always finds at least one greater fool who admires him.
"Great music is that which penetrates the ear with facility and leaves the memory with difficulty. Magical music never leaves the memory." — Thomas Beecham

Florestan

Quote from: pjme on November 23, 2024, 07:34:46 AMit is only art!

Then I'm afraid that you and I have radically different notions about what art is, dear friend. ;D

"Great music is that which penetrates the ear with facility and leaves the memory with difficulty. Magical music never leaves the memory." — Thomas Beecham

Mandryka

#37
Quote from: Kalevala on November 23, 2024, 07:41:38 AMIn terms of value, what would happen to the value of the banana "work" should someone decide to face the banana in a different direction and/or use a different color duct tape?  Or taped something else to the wall...like a different kind of fruit or a vegetable?  🧐 Hmmmm?

K

The work is conceptual, a set of instructions for realising something which can be placed in a museum. It's like a musical score, which is a set of instructions for realising something which can happen in a concert hall. Your questions are like "what would happen to the value of Beethoven's 5th if someone decided to play the last movement first?"

Prima facie, the big difference is this: art works have a significant financial value in Sotheby's, music doesn't. But that may be superficial (music does have a financial value from copyright etc.)
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Florestan

Quote from: Mandryka on November 23, 2024, 08:22:06 AMThe work is conceptual, a set of instructions for realising something

By this token, an IKEA furniture is a work of conceptual art. ;D
"Great music is that which penetrates the ear with facility and leaves the memory with difficulty. Magical music never leaves the memory." — Thomas Beecham

steve ridgway

Quote from: Florestan on November 23, 2024, 07:58:44 AMIndeed. And in my experience, the verbal diarrhea of the art critics (in general, not only in this extreme case) is equaled only by that of the musical critics.  ;D

The verbiage is the art ;) .