Yes, this is the latest in a long series of self-evidently absurd modern art stunts. Decades ago, 60 Minutes was taking shots at art exhibits consisting of piles of sugar packets. So what’s a $120K banana duct taped to a wall?
By now you have probably heard of the now world-famous banana duct-taped to Emmanuel Perrotin’s outer gallery wall at Art Basel Miami Beach. The piece that sold to an art collector for $120,000.
The “piece” being a banana duct taped to a wall.
The $120,000 banana — a real, rather ripe and edible one — is the work of Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan and titled “Comedian.” The work comes with a Certificate of Authenticity, and owners are told that they can replace the banana, as needed.
A more courageous position would have been to bar owners from replacing the banana, forcing them to live with a rotting $120,000 banana on the wall. But this isn’t about real challenges. There are limits to the epater les bourgeois bit when six figures are on the line.
New York-based performance artist David Datuna ate the banana at around 1:45 p.m. in front of a convention center full of art lovers, according to gallery representatives.
While the banana was indeed consumed, apparently that doesn’t diminish the integrity of the six-figure art work, said Lucien Terras, director of museum relations for Galerie Perrotin.
“He did not destroy the art work. The banana is the idea,” Terras said.
Once upon a time, our society elevated a whole other set of ideas. Truth, beauty, etc… all the reactionary stuff. Now we’ve got the idea of a banana duct taped to a wall as a model for our society. And it’s a great model for proggies whose economics and policies are little more than a banana duct taped to a wall. Once you eat it, it’s naked emperor territory because it was never about the banana, but the idea of it.
It’s not about health care for all, rights for workers, or any of the other social justice nonsense, but about the idea of it.
Like Communism, the idea will never be realized. The reality will be eaten up and there will be as much of it left of the reality as in the USSR or North Korea. But we will have the certificate of authenticity that comes with a completely wrecked culture and nothing else.
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