Or it could not :)
It always bugged me - if the banana is real and it is duct-taped, do they change the banana once in a few days before it rots? If so, how do they ensure they put the duct tape in the exact same spot so as not to destroy the artwork? BTW last year, I wrote a post about Cattelan's banana and the NFTs' role in contemporary art: https://kanfa.macbudkowski.com/how-nfts-save-contemporary-art
Essentially it doesn’t matter, the banana is an idea. It’s a conceptual piece of art, not so much a sculpture or an object. You could just recreate the work in your own home. But then of course you don’t officially own the idea. Luckily you can buy the idea from Maurizio. > Maurizio Cattelan's artwork Comedian, which features a banana taped to a wall, does not have a strict guideline for how often the banana should be replaced. The artist has indicated that when the banana decomposes, the owner can replace it with a new banana, and it will still be considered part of the artwork. However, there are no specific rules regarding the frequency of these replacements. You could also eat it. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/someone-ate-maurizio-cattelan-banana-art-180982091/ > Cattelan has been unfazed by both incidents. He says that Noh’s actions are “no problem at all,” according to BBC News’ Fan Wang. Similarly, after Datuna made Comedian a snack, Cattelan said that eating the banana couldn’t destroy the work since “the banana is the idea,” reports Artnet.
I agree, the banana is the idea!!
‘The Comedian’ is posing as a rebellious act to demystify and make visible the art market mechanics, but paradoxically, and that is exactly the setup, it is quickly incorporated by the market itself (at Sotheby’s). So it also show us that capitalism often absorbs its critiques and sells them back to us. The work remains stuck in this endless cycle. Is there a way to escape this seemingly endless cycle? This is perhaps one of the most challenging and important questions we face. The difficulty in answering it is itself telling - even discussing "escape" risks becoming another commodity. I think this is the “idea” the art work and what Maurizio wants show us with this piece. In a way it is a very desperate work. The system's reach is nearly total, alternative systems are difficult to imagine, basic survival often requires participation and real resistance often faces actual consequences.
> So it also show us that capitalism often absorbs its critiques and sells them back to us. The work remains stuck in this endless cycle. Reminded me of this argument by Zizek about Starbucks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P18UK5IMRDI > I think this is the “idea” the art work and what Maurizio wants show us with this piece. In a way it is a very desperate work. The system's reach is nearly total, alternative systems are difficult to imagine, basic survival often requires participation and real resistance often faces actual consequences. Agreed, actually I even once wrote about this in the context of social media, which I think accelerated this trend even more: https://timdaub.github.io/2022/07/10/dissenting-through-the-mainstream/
Yes, Zizek hits the nail on its head. (And your blogpost too.) I think critical engagement indeed remains important. The goal might not be to escape entirely, but to create enough distance to imagine different possibilities while acknowledging our own entanglement in the system we critique. For example by creating new metrics for human worth, developing non-narrative forms of resistance (no story arc) and building parallel systems while acknowledging their imperfection. Create spaces of temporary autonomy and understand maybe that perfect escape might be impossible but partial resistance is valuable.
Thinking about it, a viable critique on “The Comedian” could be that it only demystifies. Despite being a very desperate work, it is at the same time very cynical. It is not offering us any positive workable solutions. Maybe in this the work falls short.
> It is not offering us any positive workable solutions. Maybe in this the work falls short. Don‘t think so. In fact, usually I view criticism as cheap when the criticizor hasn‘t put in the work to understand the stakes. Many losers criticize Elon and they bring up how what he‘s achieving isn‘t special. But how many criticize Elon who have gone through something similar as him? It‘d not be powerful enough to shout from the side lines that art is falsely valued. A much more potent statement can be made by exposing the market‘s absurdity. When I worked with Hito Steyerl on the StrikeDAO and to implement quadratic voting, she was convinced that the only way to properly criticize the model was by trying it. Not by intellectually picking it apart and just writing about it
> to properly criticize the model was by trying it. Not by intellectually picking it apart and just writing about it Yes, that is a very good take. I agree. And in that respect the work of Maurizio is a proper critique. (And it also makes it less cynical.) But still no way out is offered to us. Maybe eating the banana is a way out? And maybe, and maybe I’m overthinking it, the banana is a meme symbolizing the glitch, the random, the unexpected error. Maybe the way out is to look for errors, the random glitches in the system the can offer insight and new ideas to develop. Also thinking of The Matrix, where glitches manifest as anomalies in the perceived reality, indicating that the simulated world is not functioning perfectly, highlighting the fragility of the simulated reality.
Bananas is btw also a meme for what apes and monkeys crave ;)
I actually think the proposed way out here is (1) mimetics, (2) systemic failure, (3) will to reform. That's the only way I know how these patterns can play out. I've seen it in crypto. So by giving himself the permission to "sell this bullshit to the art market" taking advantage of what he intended to criticize, he's also opening up the possibility for other artists to first take advantage of that "glitch in the matrix" too. Or, he's not leaving others a choice. "Either also sell your bullshit or have fun staying poor." And then hopefully this ends up repeating more and more, eventually leading to systemic failure. When that happens enough people will be hurt so that there's going to be broad enough support to generalize some of the lessons gained in the failure and hence there'll be a will to reform in the public.