The performative insouciance besides holds committedness for art’s quality to disrupt.
Nov 29, 2024 05:06 IST First published on: Nov 29, 2024 astatine 05:02 IST
In however galore ways tin 1 devour a banana? Straight up oregon successful a PB&J sandwich. As a Nutella banana crepe. Or, if 1 is simply a believer successful gharelu ubtans, arsenic a basal for a look mask. A leap of imaginativeness could, however, elevate the humble effect to good art, arsenic Italian creator Maurizio Cattelan showed successful 2019 with Comedian — a banana duct-taped connected to the assemblage wall. Comedian has had a charmed beingness — since its debut it has been consumed by performing artists successful New York and Seoul, and sold for an unbelievable $120,000-$150,000 each. Now, it has fetched $5.2m astatine a Sotheby’s auction successful New York, bought by Chinese entrepreneur Justin Sun. He gets a rotation of duct tape, installation instructions, a certificate of authenticity and a caveat: The banana and the duct portion would request to beryllium replaced arsenic required.
Banana’s meteoric elevation notwithstanding, what Cattelan’s “artwork” says astir the commodification of creation and the powerfulness of the marketplace to propel mundane objects into stardom is overmuch little charming. As helium indicated earlier, Cattelan’s provocation was a “sincere commentary connected what we value”, determined not slightest done the asymmetrical arbitration of taste, taste discourse and economical factors that signifier however creation is produced and consumed.
The performative insouciance besides holds committedness for art’s quality to disrupt. Cattelan is nary alien to it himself. Nor is helium the archetypal to person challenged hierarchy. In 1917, Marcel Duchamp had unveiled a signed porcelain urinal arsenic a enactment of art, Fountain. Almost 50 years later, Carl Andre’s Equivalent VIII, a nondescript heap of bricks, had stunned the creation satellite into boredom. Cattelan himself had built a 18 carat coagulated golden afloat functional toilet and named it America. In his archetypal word astatine the White House, erstwhile Donald Trump had requested the Guggenheim depository to lend him Van Gogh’s Landscape With Snow, it had turned him down and offered him America instead.