Duct-taped banana artwork sells for $6.2m

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https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy87202v43no

As someone who went to art school and studied art, I actually find this piece of art quite clever and interesting. I don't think it's a joke meant to shock but a genuine commentary on the art world and art market as well as a compelling piece on its own. (In the sense that a banana duct-taped to the wall is a compelling object because it's so tactile and present as itself.)

The price is of course completely ridiculous, but that is part of the point, as a commentary on how the art market plays out given the premise of specialness and exclusivity of individual works. The price was already ridiculous when it originally sold for about $100.000.

“Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.”

— Gertrude Stein

Banana is a banana is a banana is a banana.

Sometimes with duct tape.

I also think it’s interesting.

I wish I had $6.2 million what a beautiful piece of art.

This is comparable to all other modern art, about the same style and skill level.

Modern and contemporary art can be faulted for its snobbery and for not being made to be understandable or graspable to people who have not studied art, but it cannot be faulted for not having style or skill.

Perhaps I am missing something in the skill of duct tapping a banana to a wall.

Is it a real banana? What happens when it rots? Is that part of the skill? Kind of like kinetic art? Or an artist who paints a portrait on a wall which is promptly knocked down?

If you spend several millions on a duct taped banana which then rots what have you got? Bragging rights? Photographic evidence? Newspaper clippings? Do you get the wall too? The house the wall is in? A duct taped fuzzy green science project?

As a computer scientist with experience as a stage actor it seems to me I am missing something here. Perhaps someone could explain it to me in a way I could understand.

put in mind of Yoko Ono’s nails-in-a-board project, or the fellow who put a curtain between two mountains. Or the fellow who drew some money on a napkin, used it to buy a motorcycle, and then later sold the fake art money and the motorcycle to an art collector as art. Or perhaps the collector had to buy the fake money from the fellow who had sold the motorcycle.

But I still think I am missing something.

What's interesting about conceptual art is the concept. The idea of duct taping a banana to the wall and then selling it is puzzling and brings up all the questions that you pose. Why do it in the first place? Because it creates this compelling set of questions, and also because, since art is usually a physical object, there is also something appealing about the object itself: a humble banana humbly duct taped to a wall that is being elevated to the conceptual status of art. It certainly has interested you enough that you would ask all these questions. You bring up a lot of other pieces of conceptual art that you have thought about, so it seems to me that you are getting it.

In this case the only skill of sticking the banana to the wall is in conceptualizing the idea, not in the actual act of applying the duct tape, but in much of modern art there is great skill in applying paint in a particular way, for instance, as in color field paintings or abstract expressionism.

As far as the actual banana, the buyer bought the rights to duct tape a banana to the wall and to call it the work of that particular artist. The banana itself can be replaced as often as the buyer wishes to.