Last night, November 20, Maurizio Cattelan’s “Comedian” (2019), a work that consists of a banana duct-taped to a wall, sold for $6.2 million at a Sotheby’s auction.
This is wrong.
It’s beyond wrong. It’s obscene and immoral. It’s the ugliest display of excess I’ve seen in a long time.
I’m not naive. As an editor at an art publication, I recognize the power of spectacle, and I’ve covered several gimmicky, record-shattering auction sales.
But that didn’t stop my blood from boiling as I watched the bidding climb rapidly to about six times the original estimate. I wasn’t expecting it, but I felt sick to my stomach.
The billionaire who bought the banana, crypto investor Justin Sun, may have also felt something in his stomach as he threw out bid after bid. Maybe it was the distant echo of a starving child’s growling stomach.
When it first appeared on the walls of Art Basel Miami Beach in 2019, “Comedian” was hailed as a brilliant critique of the art market’s grotesque detachment from any economic rhyme or reason, let alone artistic merit. But I don’t think Cattelan’s “prank” was ever in good faith. The Italian artist swims in the same swamp as those he pretends to parody. The murkier the waters, the more they thrive.
It’s only fitting that the mundane banana was bought by a crypto bro who also conjured his fortune out of thin air. But the second the work became a personal investment asset, it lost any shred of irony it might have once possessed. “Comedian” has become worth more than the artworks whose market Cattelan pretended to lampoon by taping up the fruit at an art fair. The snake has eaten its tail. The mask has become the face. The jester has become the king.
Thank you for this. For the clarity, the line draw. The revulsion made plain.
Hyperallergic is my Democracy Now for art and culture. Tho for much more because what we do is like the vagus nerve of the larger body that we are does.
I didn’t know how to put that in the recent Hyperallergic e-survey that wondered how something you published had made a big impact. Because my experience is that your writing is a steady counterweight, an antitoxin and an elixir. Glad to find a place for it here.
Millicent
Am i missing something? Did Cattelan choose to auction the banana? Do artists have any control over auction prices? Are artist not allowed to make fun of the art world? Art auctions hit a new low, not the artist. Dont shoot the messenger.
thank you for putting my feelings down so eloquently! Definitely a counterweight to all the bizarre values spilling out inner culture and politics..
The art market is a market. The “value” of an object is its price and the price is whatever someone is willing to pay. The disgrace is the cadre of curators, collectors, galleries and auction houses (some of which pretend to teach art history!) that are slaves to, and uncritical promotors of, the market. Thanks for your reminder that, in the human world, value is distinct from price.
Hakim, Thank you for your leadership showing us the pathways for a quality democracy.
Or…we could just critique it as a lousy attempt at art because for one… it’s already been done. Duchamp did it and it caused a massive shift in art making. But now this type of act is just “ho hum, so what else is new?” Seen it before. A thousand times over. Boring.
Thank you for this. Yours is a rare voice in a world where going against the hip flow can be devastating. The Duchamp comment was also spot on.
Perhaps another stir could have been created if Cattelan had decided to donate the money. It is not too late: how about funding organizations that fight crypto currency fraud?
I totally agree with you, Hakim, but I need to comment to Isabelle: Cattelan was not the one auctioning off the banana. The “piece” had been bought and sold something like half a dozen times since Cattelan’s original — there were three, actually — brought $120,000 in Miami. Cattelan is long out of this; it’s all the far-too-rich collectors now. All this bro actually bought for $6.2 million was a certificate of provenance for something that doesn’t exist, the original banana and duct tape being long gone. It’s the closest thing the physical world has to NFTs. With NFTs, you don’t buy a thing; you buy a thing that says you bought a thing. Justin Sun has done the same. It’s bragging rights without having to bother about transportation, security, those logistical problems that are such nuisances when you buy genuine art. This is the emperor’s new clothes. This is the fall of Rome.
An idea is a terrible thing to waste. The waste basket is worth millions.