• Due to ongoing issues caused by Search, it has been temporarily disabled
  • Please excuse the mess, we're moving the furniture and restructuring the forum categories
  • You may need to edit your signatures.

    When we moved to Xenfora some of the signature options didn't come over. In the old software signatures were limited by a character limit, on Xenfora there are more options and there is a character number and number of lines limit. I've set maximum number of lines to 4 and unlimited characters.

Duct-taped banana artwork sells for $6.2m in NYC

Thermal said:
That's partially my rebuttal to arthwollipot's post. It's not a matter of *doing* it, as he said. It's a matter of a narrative being stapled to it.
Click to expand...
Have you tried selling it? Or are you just expecting 6 million dollarydoos to knock on your door?
 
Hate is very derivative, but would earn a high school art student a good mark for trying, as it contains several elements that demonstrate an understanding of themes in art.
 
arthwollipot said:
Have you tried selling it? Or are you just expecting 6 million dollarydoos to knock on your door?
Click to expand...
Do we have bad acoustics in here? Art is self expression for its own sake. The artisté does not concern themselves with paltry matters of coin. That's where the gallery comes in; they are the puppetmssters in our little passion play of pretense and profit, here.

However, being somewhat of a pimpless prostitute myself, I have put it up for sale on this very artsy minded forum, for the purchase consideration of the international community. We're running a Blue Light Special of 6 million Australian buckarinos for the next six hours. Take numbers and be orderly, please.
 
Orphia Nay said:
Hate is very derivative, but would earn a high school art student a good mark for trying, as it contains several elements that demonstrate an understanding of themes in art.
Click to expand...
Considering that it was conceived, created, and executed while running to Home Depot on the job and typing the post at red lights with the intent of lampooning with utter flippancy while conjuring up visions of silk scarved and Italian loafer wearing nitwits chasing a cigarette butt in traffic, I would have failed the high school student and made them physically eat the project in front of the class.
 
Thermal said:
Do we have bad acoustics in here? Art is self expression for its own sake. The artisté does not concern themselves with paltry matters of coin. That's where the gallery comes in; they are the puppetmssters in our little passion play of pretense and profit, here.
Click to expand...

Then why did you say this?
Thermal said:
So wheres my ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ 6 million smackeroonies?
Click to expand...

Thermal said:
However, being somewhat of a pimpless prostitute myself, I have put it up for sale on this very artsy minded forum, for the purchase consideration of the international community. We're running a Blue Light Special of 6 million Australian buckarinos for the next six hours. Take numbers and be orderly, please.
Click to expand...

In case you hadn't noticed, not many of us posters on this forum, however artsy we might be, have six million spuckerdoodles just lying around. Try selling it on an actual art market. You might want to give one of the sites listed here a go. You never know.
 
Thermal said:
Considering that it was conceived, created, and executed while running to Home Depot on the job and typing the post at red lights with the intent of lampooning with utter flippancy while conjuring up visions of silk scarved and Italian loafer wearing nitwits chasing a cigarette butt in traffic, I would have failed the high school student and made them physically eat the project in front of the class.
Click to expand...
You're too modest.

Thermal said:
Do we have bad acoustics in here? Art is self expression for its own sake. The artisté does not concern themselves with paltry matters of coin. That's where the gallery comes in; they are the puppetmssters in our little passion play of pretense and profit, here.

However, being somewhat of a pimpless prostitute myself, I have put it up for sale on this very artsy minded forum, for the purchase consideration of the international community. We're running a Blue Light Special of 6 million Australian buckarinos for the next six hours. Take numbers and be orderly, please.
Click to expand...
Or maybe not.
 
arthwollipot said:
Then why did you say this?
Click to expand...
Because I was responding to your post, countering the argument that wasn't being made. "If it's so easy, why aren't you doing it?" My artistic tour de force was to demonstrate that not only *can* it be done, but effortlessly so, and while driving back to the job site. And done better, more creatively, and dear God originally than was done with Comedian. The samollians are just the follow through. After all, the OP article (and indeed al the press this thing has gotten) are about the obscene volume of clams generated at auction for the privilege of not even really owning anything.

And I don't blame the gallery or auction house one bit for dipping their beaks. I mean, they are hustling sawbucks on commodities of no value. It's a living. If you noticed, there are two purchase prices given: $6.2 million greenbacks and $5.2m. The difference is the taste the house is taking. Nice payday off the saps.


arthwollipot said:
In case you hadn't noticed, not many of us posters on this forum, however artsy we might be, have six million spuckerdoodles just lying around. Try selling it on an actual art market. You might want to give one of the sites listed here a go. You never know.
Click to expand...
Imma wait to be discovered. It's a more engrossing backstory that way. Marcellus Thermál is not a street vendor.
 
Last edited:
arthwollipot said:
Again, perfectly in keeping with Dadaism. You're derivative.

:xtongue
Click to expand...
The police called it lewd and lacivious, but that might be one of those English/Australian/American pronunciation things.

Your spoiler freaked me the ◊◊◊◊ out, because I didn't realize it was a spoiler. It looked like a pic of a moon behind clouds, so I of course thought you were saying "art is mooning you".
 
Orphia Nay said:
I'm glad you're having fun with this. Seriously. 🙂
Click to expand...
In all seriousness (no, really) I've been trying to get a handle on this stuff since I was a teen. I just don't...get it. The answers I get when I ask about it in all sincerity range from evasive to condescending. But I still throw a line out every once in a while to try my luck at getting a *meaningful* grip on it.
 
Thermal said:
In all seriousness (no, really) I've been trying to get a handle on this stuff since I was a teen. I just don't...get it. The answers I get when I ask about it in all sincerity range from evasive to condescending. But I still throw a line out every once in a while to try my luck at getting a *meaningful* grip on it.
Click to expand...
I think it's meant to be fun AND serious which is contrary, fun, serious, self-important, self-mocking, and self-reflexive. /semi-arty bollocks
 
Thermal said:
In all seriousness (no, really) I've been trying to get a handle on this stuff since I was a teen. I just don't...get it. The answers I get when I ask about it in all sincerity range from evasive to condescending. But I still throw a line out every once in a while to try my luck at getting a *meaningful* grip on it.
Click to expand...
Seriously now, that kind of is the point of the Dadaist movement. It's intentionally nonsensical, incomprehensible. Meaning is meaningless. For a brief period it got really popular then just being dumb and nonsensical and meaningless wasn't enough. Dadaism had lost its edge.

Your off-the-cuff photo is actually pretty good, by the way.
 
Conceptual Art is still relevant/topical.

Think Banksy's self-shredding painting, the first few NFTs, and this banana's $0.35c / $6.2 million sales.

Or maybe are they just new ways of saying the same thing?
 
Ryan O'Dine said:
I want to buy Thermal's piece, but I'm confused about the price. Is it six million spuckerdoodles, 6 million Australian buckarinos, or 6 million smackeroonies? Also, if someone can convert that to American cabbage, I'd appreciate it.
Click to expand...
As anybody in West Cork can tell you, that amount of money converts to 1 US dollar.
 
arthwollipot said:
Seriously now, that kind of is the point of the Dadaist movement. It's intentionally nonsensical, incomprehensible. Meaning is meaningless. For a brief period it got really popular then just being dumb and nonsensical and meaningless wasn't enough. Dadaism had lost its edge.
Click to expand...
Ok, but Dadaism was a reaction to WWI, right? It was not just an art style, but an impassioned, politically charged anti-establishment FY. So in context, totally get that, man.

So is Comedian from that school of thought? I'm not seeing it. I'm not seeing any more than a 70's sitcom plot.

What bugs me about this work is how... not sure if it's the right word, but... uninspired it is. Does it inspire discussion? Sure. But the conceptual idea is so trite that I'm not seeing why it is being put on a pedestal. And not one damned crack about duct tape from you, if you please.
arthwollipot said:
Your off-the-cuff photo is actually pretty good, by the way.
Click to expand...
Thanks, it's currently my retirement plan. Beats the hell out of the previous one, which was "dying on the job".
 
Orphia Nay said:
Conceptual Art is still relevant/topical.

Think Banksy's self-shredding painting, the first few NFTs, and this banana's $0.35c / $6.2 million sales.

Or maybe are they just new ways of saying the same thing?
Click to expand...
Ok, but if conceptual art is an idea (a thought), what's it doing in a gallery or museum? That's the place to store dead things.

Banksy is my favorite artist, BTW. Street art is alive and out in the wild, and his works tell a story, and that story is for everyone, everyday, not hidden away.

ETA: except for the shredder act. I found that kind of cheap. And NFTs have been a lame joke since their inception.
 
Last edited:
Banksy is amazing. Street art meets political art meets happenings meets conceptual meet something wholly new.

Love how one day he's selling the self-shredding painting at Sotheby's, another he's giving someone a whole mural on their unused wall overnight, another day he's selling his paintings in a sidewalk stall in NYC for $20.

Thermal said:
Ok, but if conceptual art is an idea (a thought), what's it doing in a gallery or museum? That's the place to store dead things.
Click to expand...
The banana looks kinda dead. 😂

IS conceptual art always just a thought?

(Not arguing, enjoying the discussion.)
 
Orphia Nay said:
Banksy is amazing. Street art meets political art meets happenings meets conceptual meet something wholly new.

Love how one day he's selling the self-shredding painting at Sotheby's, another he's giving someone a whole mural on their unused wall overnight, another day he's selling his paintings in a sidewalk stall in NYC for $20.
Click to expand...
Truth. It literally brought tears to my eyes when I read about the painting he made and donated to a hospital, with the child picking up a nurse doll over superhero dolls. Banksy's the man. Presumably.
Orphia Nay said:
The banana looks kinda dead. 😂
Click to expand...
I was dead serious watching if the people that ate it found a special something had been injected into the banana for a down-home real artistic experience.
Orphia Nay said:
IS conceptual art always just a thought?

(Not arguing, enjoying the discussion.)
Click to expand...
I...guess? I've only got the layest of lay understanding, but I thought that was the deal? The object just represented what the artist was saying, and was not actually important.
 
Thermal said:
Ok, but Dadaism was a reaction to WWI, right? It was not just an art style, but an impassioned, politically charged anti-establishment FY. So in context, totally get that, man.
Click to expand...
Well yes, it started that way, but fast forward to the 70s and you were getting artworks that were just absurd for absurdity's sake, that were still being labelled as "Dadaist".
 
arthwollipot said:
Well yes, it started that way, but fast forward to the 70s and you were getting artworks that were just absurd for absurdity's sake, that were still being labelled as "Dadaist".
Click to expand...
Well that fast-forwarding is where the problem is, and the whole nature of this discussion. Dadaists had meaning at one point, even if the overt art often seemed meaningless. What a lot of Joe Six-packs are seeing is that at some point the new crew disconnected from actual meaning, and are riding on... well, nothing much. There are a bunch of well-respected art critics giving a similar assessment of Comedian.

But if something gets hyped up, and the attention generates interest and spikes the value, that's OK. Kinda dumb, but OK. An investor doesn't care if a given work is meaningful.or artistic; they care if it will give a return.

So what we're talking about here is how the art community sees this. Is Joe right, and it's descended to a bunch of bull ◊◊◊◊ now? Or is there some kind of difference between Hate and Comedian that could be justified? I mean, art is subjective yada yada yada, but when a work rises to this level of prominence, there kind of has to be something special about it? More so than some crap a teen in art class whipped together last minute because he was playing GTA all night and forgot to do his homework?
 
A NY Times reporter found where the banana came from...a poor man selling fruit outside Southebys.


At the fruit stand where he works on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, Shah Alam sells dozens of bananas a day at 35 cents a piece, or four for a dollar. He does a brisk business in cheap fruit outside Sotheby’s auction house; inside, art can sell for millions.

But last Wednesday, Mr. Alam sold a banana that a short time later would be auctioned as part of a work of absurdist art, won by a cryptocurrency entrepreneur for $5.2 million plus more than $1 million in auction-house fees.

A few days after the sale, as Mr. Alam stood in the rain on York Avenue and East 72nd Street, snapping bananas free of their bunches, he learned from a reporter what had become of the fruit: It had been duct-taped to a wall as part of a work by the Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, and sold to Justin Sun, the Chinese founder of a cryptocurrency platform.

And when he was told the sale price, he began to cry.

“I am a poor man,” Mr. Alam, 74, said, his voice breaking. “I have never had this kind of money; I have never seen this kind of money.”
Click to expand...
 
Anyone that has so much money they can splurge the equivalent of about three peoples lifetime earnings on a banana taped to a wall should be taxed more.
 
Thermal said:
Yeah... I got that. Thanks.

So ok, let's run with it. Here's my artwork that I could have done, that you ask why I didn't do:

View attachment 57873

It was hard to find this ready made sculpture because apparently mother ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ don't smoke anymore.

So I call it Hate. It represents our self destructive impulses (duh, smoking) as well as our contempt for the wider community (duh, littering). It also hearkens to smoke and ash of burning crosses and holocosts and stuff. And here's the cool part: it doesn't get displayed in a museum, because hate is blowing in the wind and alive on our streets as we speak. You have to follow Hate around as it works its way through your community. And heres the clincher: youll eventually get tired of looking at it and turn away, putting it out of your mind, allowing it to continue its spread. People get busy. Cigarette filters don't decompose well, so the hate will remain for a long time, getting more rotten. Yet we will make more.

I wrote a Certificate of Authenticity on a piece of scrap paper, so don't try to steal my ◊◊◊◊.

So there you go. Minimal effort bull ◊◊◊◊ with a trite narrative attached. Unlike Comedian, Hate's actually original. So wheres my ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ 6 million smackeroonies?

Art has very little to do with content, and a lot to do with narrative. Hate wont make me millions because an art gallery hasn't told you it should.
Click to expand...
I don't think it's moveable. That makes it impossible to install at a gallery or in the home of a rich person who appreciates modern art such as this. Alas, no six million smackeroonies. But the lack of commercial value renders it as pure art!
 
varwoche said:
I don't think it's moveable. That makes it impossible to install at a gallery or in the home of a rich person who appreciates modern art such as this. Alas, no six million smackeroonies. But the lack of commercial value renders it as pure art!
Click to expand...
But that's why it's brilliant (for our purposes meaning profitable). The winning bidder gets to finally pick it up and can say they removed Hate from the streets of NYC. Then they can call themselves a hero or something at the bar later.
 
3point14 said:
Anyone that has so much money they can splurge the equivalent of about three peoples lifetime earnings on a banana taped to a wall should be taxed more.
Click to expand...
The buyer is Chinese, man. Maybe it's better that he is not pumping more cash to the Chinese government?

Also, he runs a crypto scam which is apparently drowning in cash, real or imaginary. The US SEC is already all over his ass for fraud.

It'd be kind of poetic if he pays Sotheby's in a new crypto currency, hopefully called BananaBucks.
 
In breaking banana art news, the new owner of Comedian has in fact eaten the banana.


Couple thoughts:

1. Derivative as a mother ◊◊◊◊◊◊. It was literally already done twice.
2. What else was he supposed to do with the fresh banana he bought? Throw it out?
3. He says it tasted different from other bananas. Like, you could taste the oppression.
4. The banana he ate at the Hong Kong press conference was in fact bought in Hong Kong. De facto then, a cheap Chinese ripoff.

The buyer is also donating 100,000 bananas to be distributed for free in the area where this poor seller previously sold them to people. Rubbing a little salt in the wound by making sure the banana seller loses 100,000 sales, I guess.

Eta: the NPR wording may be deceptive. It says "he would purchase 100,000 bananas to be distributed for free to Alam's customers." It may have meant the bananas were being given to the distributor for free to be sold by the banana seller. I mean the non-artist banana seller. It's complicated

Art!
 
Last edited:
Agreed. And?

Wait, are we doing art? My turn:

"Nobody is saying that drug buyers are druggists".

Too derivative? Or $6m worth of brilliance?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom