bookofjoe

'Duct-Taped Banana Could Fetch US$1.5 Million at Auction'

[An edition of Maurizio Cattelan's "Comedian" (2019) will be sold on November 20 at Sotheby's in New York for an estimate between $1 million and $1.5 million.]

From PENTA:

The Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan is getting another chance to annoy and delight art critics — and make headlines — with his infamous banana taped to a wall that is actually a work of contemporary art. 

Titled Comedian, the piece sparked outrage, amusement, discourses on meaning and art history — and a snack for one fairgoer — when it was exhibited at Art Basel Miami Beach in December 2019. At the time, three editions of the artwork created from two artist proofs were sold for prices ranging from US$120,000 to US$150,000.

Now, the "number 2" edition will appear in the hallowed halls of the 280-year-old Sotheby's, where it will be sold by an anonymous collector as a highlight of the auction house's The Now and Contemporary Evening Auction in two weeks in New York. The estimated price range is between US$1 million and US$1.5 million. 

"If at its core, Comedian questions the very notion of the value of art, then putting the work at auction this November will be the ultimate realization of its essential conceptual idea — the public will finally have a say in deciding its true value," David Galperin, Sotheby's head of contemporary art, said in a statement.

For the artist, the piece was always meant to be a commentary on art and value and meaning in the vein of Marcel Duchamp’s 1917 Fountain, a porcelain toilet, and Damien Hirst's 1991 The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living — a tiger shark swimming forever in formaldehyde within a glass display case. 

Even closer kinship can be found in South African artist Roelof Louw's Soul City (Pyramid of Orange), a 5-foot 6-inch square x 5-foot-high pyramid of about 5,800 oranges held within a wooden frame, displayed by the Arts Lab in London's Covent Garden in October 1967. Visitors were invited to take and eat the displayed oranges.

"To me, Comedian was not a joke; it was a sincere commentary and a reflection on what we value," Cattelan told the Art Newspaper in November 2021. "At art fairs, speed and business reign, so I saw it like this: If I had to be at a fair, I could sell a banana like others sell their paintings. I could play within the system, but with my rules." 

One factor in the work's value will be the certificate of authenticity that accompanies each work. At the time of the Art Basel sale, a spokesperson for Perrotin, the gallery representing the artist, said the certificates have "exact instructions for installation and authenticate that the work is by Maurizio Cattelan." (The real bananas at the core of each work are constantly replaced.)

One of the editions was bought by Miami collectors Billy and Beatrice Cox, while  another went to Paris collector Sarah Andelman. The artist proofs were bought by museums. An anonymous donor gave one edition to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, Artsy reported in September 2020.

One example of the work was eaten by a hungry visitor to Seoul's Leeum Museum of Art last year, echoing the same fate the artwork experienced at Art Basel Miami Beach when it was first displayed in 2019.

Visitors who have never seen a banana duct-taped to a wall will had a chance last month at Sotheby's headquarters in New York before it went on tour to be displayed in eight other cities around the world: London, Paris, Milan, Hong Kong, Dubai, Taipei, Tokyo, and Los Angeles.

The banana will be back in New York today before it arrives on the auction block on Wednesday, November 20.

Previously: 2004; 2016.

Wait a sec — what's that song I'm hearing?

 

The Ultimate Faraday Cage

Somewhere in Russia, at a secure, undisclosed location,

you will find a man who lives in the foil-lined hut

pictured above and below.

The good news: No need to wear one of those idiotstick hats.

[via English Russia]

bookofjoe's Favorite Thing: McDavid Thigh Wrap

I would not have believed it possible for an inexpensive piece of kit to instantly improve the constant pain and soreness in my right hamstring that's been present for three weeks, ever since out of the blue, toward the end of an easy three mile run outside, I suddenly felt a sharp pain halfway up the back of my right thigh.

Reader, believe me: yesterday the pain stopped as soon as I strapped on the McDavid wrap pictured above and below.

Are you kidding me?

$24.99 to eliminate pain that was persistent and sharp and unrelenting and not improving even with rest and aspirin and Tylenol around the clock?

Cheap at 10x the price and way easier, faster, and better than a visit to some urgent care facility.