in 2014 (ten years ago), I wrote about Piero Manzoni’s Merde d’artiste estimated to sell for between €50,000 and €70,000 (see article at the bottom of the page). And then there was Maurizio Catalan’s banana, which is back in the news. Sotheby’s has just announced that it will go on sale on November 20 for an estimated price of $1 million .
Maurizio Cattelan made headlines when one of his works was presented at the Art Basel Miami exhibition at Galerie Perrotin. A banana glued to a wall with grey Scotch©, and bought three times over by collectors (conceptual art oblige!) for the modest sum of $120,000. So many people rushed to see the work that the security of the stand could no longer be guaranteed. (You know the story of Till Eulenspiegel (Till the Mischievous), who portrays the king, and the behavior of the courtiers? That’s exactly it!)
In the kitsch excess of contemporary art, this might have gone “ unnoticed”, if a performance artist and visitor to the exhibition, David Datuna, hadn’t gone into the stand to pick up the banana and eat it. A very good one, according to him!
An iconoclastic intervention, no doubt! The banana was immediately replaced! But it doesn’t really matter, because the work (named “Comedian” by Maurizio Catalan (a title in itself) only finds its financial value in the certificate and order form issued by the seller! The work itself no longer exists. One banana, a thousand bananas, it’s all irrelevant! A soulless art that replicates and multiplies itself, an art without substance, dematerialized, disembodied, peeled off is the word! Permutable art, in which the buyer becomes the very actor of the work of art, and the work of art itself. Absurdity knows no bounds. But is it still art? The question doesn’t even deserve to be asked! It’s a far cry from the asceticism that nurtures, or the creation that brings and dispenses joy!
Walking is defined by walking, they say, like the operational marketing that anticipates and feeds the learned courses taught in business schools! What’s more, art schools have been consigned to the past! All you need is an idea, a sense of communication, psychology and business acumen – in other words, “marketing”, a stroke of media genius, like Betty Boop ‘s grandfather’s flashing cartoon gibus. One idea, and it’s off around the world via FaceBook, X Twitter or Instagram. It’s no longer “My Kingdom for a horse!”, but universal fame, international recognition and piles of dollars for the person who unearths the idea, the concept as we brazenly bleat! A translation from the unique to the multiple, from the intense to the vulgar.
Maurizio Catalan’s banana is simply the result of this lying, manipulative and unhealthy discourse, which leads anyone writing and posting on FaceBook to believe that they are Voltaire defending Callas, Mirabeau receiving the Marquis de Dreux-Brezé, or Emile Zola writing J’accuse. In the same way, it would be possible to deal with music, diplomacy or any other subject of substance. It’s a certain way of being in the world, of course, but not everyone is Mozart or Rembrandt ! It’s setting up the world as a forest of lies, it’s trumping up1 society. Some people won’t accept it or take offense, but who cares, it’s the fascization of art.
On November 20, “Comedian” , will go under the gavel alongside works by Jasper Johns, Alex Colville, and Cy Colville at Sotheby’s Now ans Contemporary evening sale in New York, with a pre-sale estimate of $1 million to $1.5 million. The auction will follow a world tour that will start with a one-day exhibition in New York and travel to cities such as London, Paris, Milan, Hong Kong, Dubai, Taipei, Tokyo and Los Angeles, according to the announcement.
Read about: Artist shit ( Italian: Merda d’artista) by Piero Manzoni in the original French version language of this text
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- Tromper is a French verb. It means to mislead, to cheat, to betray, to dupe. Any phonetic connexion with an American moron agitator and fascist is purely intentional ↩︎
