SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
When I started dating my now husband, the decor in his dorm apartment included a banana that he and his roommates had drunkenly taped to the wall. ...Twelve years later, believe it or not, he still has it in a plastic bag somewhere in our apartment.
So imagine my surprise when I arrived at the VIP preview for Art Basel Miami Beach and discovered that Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan had done exactly the same thing. The most important difference being, of course, that this version—sourced from a local Miami supermarket and on sale from Perrotin, the Parisian gallery with locations in New York and across Asia—cost a cool $120,000.
"We sold it already," announced a triumphant Emmanuel Perrotin as I took a close look at the piece, titled Comedian. The buyer, a French woman, has bought work from the gallery before, but never a work by Cattelan, I was told.
By the time I left the booth, a deal on a second edition of the piece had also been closed, sold to a French man. (Perrotin told him about my husband's banana, to reassure him that the banana would age well, and the collector threatened to buy that one instead.)
[...] After the second sale, Perrotin quickly texted Cattelan, and the two agreed to raise the price to $150,000 for the third edition of the work, which they have decided to sell to a museum—and two institutions have already expressed interest, according to the gallery. (There are also two artists proofs of the work, only one of which is for sale.)
[...] The artist wouldn't speak to the work's meaning, but he was partially inspired by the large number of paintings he's seen at galleries recently. "I'm not in Miami, but I'm sure it's full of paintings as well," said Cattelan. "I thought maybe a banana could be a good contribution!"
https://news.artnet.com/market/maurizio-cattelan-banana-art-basel-miami-beach-1722516
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday December 12 2019, @03:21AM
There are all kinds of art. Art Basel Miami is, foremost, about art that sells for money - lots of money. As such, the banana is a successful commercial artwork. Further, it has gotten all this free press: worth far more than its selling price.
To sell art, you have to appeal to the buyer. To sell (simple to make) art in the $120K-150K price range, you have to appeal to that crowd of maybe 1000 people in the entire world who both have the money and also have the desire to "make a statement" with the art they purchase - whether for themselves or for a museum. Again, Basel Miami is an event where this kind of thing can happen - once in a while.
This kind of simple to make art (I'm reminded of the knot paintings [icaboston.org] I saw in the Hirshhorn in 1988), has to strike the fancy of the buyer - which is a complex combination of the artist's projection of themselves, the mindset and mood of the buyer(s), and a whole lot of dumb luck. It has absolutely nothing to do with the cost, time, or effort involved in making the piece, and certainly nothing to do with any intrinsic value.
I don't play anywhere near this level, but as a buyer I bought a Diamond Rio [wikipedia.org] back in 1999 - not because it was a great device: clearly much better ones were coming, but as a statement of support for the fledgling industry. As a seller, when I showed my limited edition prints arrayed all sincerely on the wall of a local restaurant for $200 a piece for their weekly show, a customer stepped up and bought one - not because $200 was any kind of bargain, but because he knew I was a local artist and probably felt good about supporting the scene, and whenever he looks at that piece on the wall he will be reminded of that...
As for the French millionaires who get off on duct-taped bananas, I'm sure it will be the source of cocktail party amusement for years to come, something they may be lacking? If this has any close connections to money laundering, then it has been an epic fail - money launderers abhor attention.
🌻🌻 [google.com]