Right up front I need to say that I am not qualified to write about this topic. So, let’s get to it. I will boldly go where I should not. Not being qualified has never stopped me before.
A banana, duct taped to a wall, under the guise of art, sold for $6.2 million at a Sotheby’s auction. Now I appreciate good art as much as anyone, but these shock value pieces tarnish true art and cause a serious loss of credibility for the field. The statement about art being “in the eye of the beholder” only goes so far. To call this art is balderdash and poppycock (excuse my language).
This latest piece of “art,” titled “Comedian,” is by noted prankster Maurizio Cattelan. Three earlier versions sold for between $120,000 and $150,000. This latest version sold for $5.2 million with an extra $1 million tacked on for auction house fees. Sotheby’s, you should be ashamed of yourself.
Oh, and the banana was purchased for 35 cents at an Upper East Side fruit stand just before the auction. The banana vendor is an immigrant from Bangladesh who works 12-hour shifts for $12 an hour whose home is a basement apartment in the Bronx that he shares with five other men. He pays $500 a month for his room. Chinese-born cryptocurrency entrepreneur Justin Sun is the buyer. Two of his six rivals in the bidding stayed in the running til $2.5 million. They had planned on giving it to Elon Musk as a gift. This does not inspire confidence in the world of cryptocurrency. You really want to talk about out-of-touch elites?
Art should inspire, be thought provoking and even shock, but this is just ridiculous. My spouse and I lived in the East Village in NYC in the 1970s and early ’80s. At the time, it was a raw neighborhood filled with artists and shall we say, others. My spouse went to art school with Keith Haring at the time. If you don’t know his work, he started by drawing stick figures on subway walls and grew into a very famous artist. His stuff was very different and bordering on graffiti, but he worked hard at it, and it paid off. He was kind of an earlier, more simplified street artist like Banksy of today.
Haring and Banksy are both worthy shock artists who get their message across. They display their art publicly on walls and self-built physical prop pieces. This is art that reaches the people, unlike some privately bought piece that will hang in the house to be seen only by the owner and their rich friends. In the latest development, the buyer, Mr. Sun, has eaten the banana during a news conference, of course, at a luxury hotel in Hong Kong. I wonder what the remaining duct tape will cost?
This fraudulent portion of the art world and its financially bloated patrons have too much money and they don’t know how to spend it. They desperately need a reasonable person to help them manage their money. I am available. Think of the good that amount of money could do elsewhere in the world, especially in today’s world. I include in this despicable group those who attempt to justify this as art. If the art world had any testicular fortitude, it would condemn this as the fraud it is.
Locally, I love the public murals that are popping up throughout Durango. One thought though: Don’t cover our gorgeous brick walls with a mural. They are art as themselves.
Jim Cross is a retired Fort Lewis College professor and basketball coach living in Durango. Reach him at cross_j@fortlewis.edu.
