Is Rare Art More A-Peeling Than Rare Glass? Collectors, once again, go nuts — and go bananas This banana with duct tape sold for $120,000. Art? It makes rare glass, sans duct tape, look like a bargain.
Edited by Ralph Finch
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s there something rotten in the art world? It’s probably this overpriced old fruit.
What about the world of glass? Over the years, bottle collectors have ooh’ed and ahh’ed when years ago a rare bottle sold for $10,000. Then $20,000 for an ink, then $50,000, then $100,000. It’s hard to keep up with the up-and-up prices of great glass. It has been muttered by saner minds that some collectors are bananas. And, last December, that criticism has been proven true, and other art critics are going bananas. A banana duct-taped to a wall sold for $120,000 at a Miami art gallery, and I’m hungry to make sense of all this. The fruit and tape in question was the work of Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, and it literally is just a real banana ducttaped to a wall, titled “The Comedian.” No joke. There are reports of three “edi-
tions” of the “work of art,” two of which have been sold. The third banana was expected to go for $150,000! On the one hand, the $120,000 banana duct-taped to a wall is good. People always like to dismiss modern art as simplistic, often remarking, “I could make that.” The go-to comeback to this statement is, “Yeah, but you didn’t.” Hate all you want, but you didn’t just make a couple hundred grand by attaching maybe a dollar’s worth of produce to the wall with pieces of tape. But Maurizio Cattelan did. And, as a piece of art, “The Comedian” actually does have something to say. Emmanuel Perrotin, whose gallery displayed the art — “Bananas, aisle three” — said the piece is about how the meaning and importance of objects changes depending on the context. (Huh?) “The spectacle is as much a part of the work as the banana.”
Cattelan is famous for another one of his works, an 18-karat gold toilet titled “America” valued at $6 million that was recently stolen from England’s Blenheim Palace. Now, $6 million for a gold toilet? As a collector of antique toilet paper I was tempted, but the auction house refused my credit card. Here’s the central rub with the banana duct-taped to a wall. It is both a funny critique of the absurdities of art and capitalism, yet it is inherently part of that problem, too. While I was at the Detroit News many years ago, I was friendly with the paper’s art critic. Once, visiting her home, I noted a square of blue fuzz framed and hung from her wall. It had been given to her by a local Detroit artist, and its title? “Clothes drier lint.” So, is the banana duct-taped to a wall good or bad? I don’t know. It’s higher in potassium than most art, so let’s just say, by that measure, it’s good. April 2020
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