Artist sells banana duct-taped to wall for $120,000 at Art Basel in Miami Beach
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The art scene has gone B-A-N-A-N-A-S over an a-peeling piece that sold for $120,000 at Art Basel in Miami Beach this week.
A single banana duct-taped to a wall by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan intrigued some art aficionados while baffling others. The work's first edition apparently came from a local Miami supermarket and sold for $120,000 by Perrotin, an international art gallery, according to Artnet.com .
Other editions of the art reportedly sold for even higher prices, the site said.
Art Basel is an international festival known for attracting celebrities and art world luminaries looking for innovative new pieces. The festival is held in three different cities each year: Basel, Switzerland; Miami Beach, Florida; and Hong Kong, China
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Some people have more money than sense.
That looks like a real banana. It will continue to age and ripen. Who pays $120,000 to put a moldy rotting banana on their wall? Held up by duct tape no less.
Wonder if they damaged it when took it down for the purchaser.
I wonder if the fruit flies it will inevitably draw in increase the artistic value?
It's gonna leave a stain on somebody's wall.....
And then come the spiders
And pull off their paint when removed.
Dear Friend Sandy: Agreed.
More dollars than sense.
Send the buyer to my home.
I have an over ripe avocado and Scotch tape available for purchase.
Cash only, no refunds.
All sales final.
This offer not valid where prohibited by law and/or common sense.
P&AB.
Enoch, Creating a Guacamole Masterpiece.
I compost kitchen waste for my garden. I could pay off my mortgage selling potato peels and coffee grounds.
Dear Sandy: First check with Jays Diner.
They may have patented that combo as their Friday Blue Plate Special.
They used to put the grounds around trees as a compost.
Now they only do that with decaf grounds.
Regular coffee compost past noon kept the trees up at night.
Enoch, Munching some Jays Francisco Fried Tater Skins.
I hate it when that happens
Smiles.
I wonder what one of my art creations would sell for if I framed it with gray duck tape.....
....and then stuck to a wall with rainbow colored duck tape.
A gay buyer would probably pay you a lot of money for it.
Hmmm....you think that only a gay buyer would be interested in buying it? Why?
The rainbow coloured tape. But I didn't mean that ONLY a gay buyer would like your art.
Ah...I see. I have used multicolored tape for decorations on several projects just to add a bit of contrast and color to liven it up.
Thanks for the clarification.
"Ut oh. You know what that means. I must be gay." (Walter - In And Out)
OK is that a real banana taped to a wall or a painting of one? It looks perfectly ripe right now but everybody knows that a banana is only perfect for about 5 minutes then it's rotten.
In the video, it's an actual banana taped to an actual wall, not a pic of a banana taped to a wall.
I prefer my bananas a bit on the green side. Once they're as ripe as that one, I bake banana bread.
When I see ripe bananas at the gas station I offer half price for one and they always take it;
Talk about a incredible waste of money!
I just duct-taped one to my wall. Hope somebody buys it before it goes bad.
I'm only asking $800.00.
A bargain price.
Will $800 cover repainting your walls? Cuz you can never repaint just one wall.
I'll throw in a duck-taped apple and I think we can double the price or make a pie?
I'm going to have to start harvesting pears from my pear tree. I don't like pears, so I've left them to the deer and bears. That one tree and a few rolls of tape (maybe mix it up with some electrical or painter's tape) could support me in retirement.
Who was it that said "There's a sucker born every minute"? The "artist" of the duct taped banana has to be laughing his ass off.
Cost of banana - $.50
Cost of duct tape - $.25
Finding a fool who would pay $120,000 for it - Priceless
What's even more hilarious is that yesterday some other artist took the banana off the wall and ate it, then left.
I just read that, and apparently there is a certificate of authentication and a disclaimer that allows to put in a different banana .
Now, for our liberal friends on here, the real question is...
Will the next banana be a "new" banana or a "replacement" banana, especially if the duct tape is the same piece?
I cleaned out the refrigerator and threw away a fortune
I just bought a brand new bunch this morning. Christmas gifts are taken care of. Who doesn't want a $120,000 piece of art?
Ha!!!!!!!!!!!
Best comment so far! LMAAAAAAAOOOOOO!
As sophisticated as I like to think my artistic interpretations are, words escape me in this particular case.
What's worse, I now have a hefty case of psychosomatic rotting banana aroma invading my space. I would much rather have a stupid song stuck in my head for a week.
I have psychosomatic fruit flies buzzing around my ears. Worse than a musical earworm.
None of this holds any a peel for me at all.
Very punny.
Edible art...
Shoot, my dad would head straight for the duct tape. We suspected that he broke things on purpose just so he could facilitate a duct tape repair.
When I broke my ankle, Mr Giggles used duct tape to tape plastic over my cast when I took a shower. One day he got the tape over the hair on my knee. Who needs to wax! Just use duct tape!
My toolbox consists of a hammer, screwdriver and duct tape. I can fix anything with them. At times fixing electronics is a bit dicey though.
You duct-taped your ankles? WTH.
That's way more information than I needed...LOL
I don’t know about that.
LMAO...
If it moves and you want it to stay still use duct tape. If it doesn't move and you want it to use WD40.
Gorilla tape is the shit.
Welcome to the world of waxing!
I should do a poll on whether people pull the tape off their hairy limbs slow or fast. I think it's an indication of types of personality.
I was known to use duct tape on the medevac birds when I ran out of surgical tape. Crew chiefs always kept extra rolls on board just in case!
Some Army medics will carry duct tape in the field. It works great for closing wounds.
That and super glue. I used that even before it became standard in a lot of ER's.
Unfortunately, bored field medics will sniff the superglue.
Good thing I never had time to be bored.
I used it for a simple repair and it failed. I used cheap duct tape and it worked.
I dont know what everyone is laughing about . A banana taped to a wall is worth $ 120,000. Capitalism tells us so.
We are laughing at the absurdity of it. Please join us.
Are you calling capitalism absurd?
Capitalism isn't absurd. It's the fool who thinks a banana duct taped to a wall and spends $120,000 for it that's absurd.
What the hell is this "art" supposed to represent? That Barnum was right?
According to capitalism things are actually worth whatever someone is willing to pay for them. That is how we get $10,000 individual tickets to the Super Bowl.
And bananas. And duct tape.
Along with $1,000.00 hammers and $10,000.00 toilet seats for the military!
I don't usually dictate on how people should spend their money, but in the case of whatever idiot paid that kind of money for a banana taped to a wall, I will make an exception. Think of how many food banks could have been benefited for one.
Amen!
Absolutely.
Are we forgetting that ''beauty is in the eye of the beholder''.....I suspect that few, if any, of our NT members are art lovers.
So, with that said I'm off to peel another banana.
I actually appreciate a Jackson Pollack...the colors, the textures, the swirls...whatever.
But this? ok
This is my recent art purchase. Andy Warhol Tomato Can.
It carries a subliminal message.
I'm thinking of a suite with the Tomato Can painting next to the Duct taped Banana. That would set the art world on it's collective ear.
I forgot the guys name but we had a member here that I think was an apprentice of Warhol. As I recall he might have been living in Egypt the last time I heard from him. I thought he was a talented artist. He was also member of NV.
Now I remember it was Dennis McCann.
"he has been the subject of two documentaries- 'Dennis McCann, Artist,' a film by Gerry Barajas, and 'Dennis McCann: Portrait of an Artist,' a film by Sohhyun Yi."
Dennis lived in Turkey. Nobody seems to know what happened to him since his website went down. He might have moved home to Chicago.
His facebook page is still active and says that he lives in Turkey.
I remember him from NV. Lost track of him after that.
Thanks for the link.
Here's a movie quiz question since you're good at them - in what movie does a Jackson Pollack have a significant role?
I wonder if anyone is able to answer that question.
Woody Allen's movie....Bananas?
A Jackson Pollack painting, not a banana.
It was The Accountant. I really liked that movie - have you seen it?
It's been years, but I think I have. Except for Sleeper and Everything You Wanted Know About Sex (I have a great story about that movie.), I am not much of a fan of him or his movies.
I could be wrong but I don't think Dennis ever lived in Egypt-- although its quite possible he had an exhibit there. And IIRC, he was never actually had an account on NT?
He was originally from a Catholic family in Chicago, met a Turkish Muslim woman whom he married-- and moved to Turkey. (His wife was from a somewhat unusual Muslim sect--I believe Alevi? A group in the past had been terribly persecuted and many innocent Alevis were massacred in Turkey. .(In that area there are quite a few Kurds as well who became Alevi Muslims).
Dennis was very prominent on NV and often quite a troll. Also he was an compulsive liar-- and his "groupies" there backed him up. (He and two of his cohorts there accused me of being a member of a terrorist group but I foolishly neglected to copy & save their writings).
(cont'd in next comment)
(cont'd from #7. 1. 12)
He had a tremendous Ego and eventually created a petition for other users to sign-- a petition that challenged some of the policies of "The Powers That Be". ... eventually resulting in him no longer being on NV.
BTW, in many ways he was responsible for NV creating the "nations" system.He has some loyal followers, groupies who attacked people they didn't like.
Eventually a group formed (led mainly by jfxgillis and some of his friends) that attempted to counter their lies-- and their nasty attacks on other 'Viners. Some of these fights literally went on for days-- YUGE numbers of personal attacks-- sometimes these "discussions went to 100s of comments and stayed on the front page for quite a while. (At that time IIRC NV was still a fairly large site-- and for quite a while had only one moderator!)
(Usually arguments online are between people of opposing political views, but what I found to be ironic was that the leaders of both factions-- McCann and Gillis-- were both very liberal politically.
Mods were overwhelmed-- so they came up with the Nation system which while disliked by most people was effective in stopping these long "flame wars".
I remember him on NV-- he was constantly bashing the United States. (And went on and on about how great Turkey is!). So my guess is that he's still in his adopted homeland . . . maybe he just decided it time to retire?)
Don't sleep on it. Oh, I meant don't slip on it.
Is that a Banana taped to your wall...or are you just glad to see me?
;The reincarnation of Mae West...
In this case it should be ..."eye of the beer holder."
I think some of these art aficionados give themselves far too much credit for finding brilliance and insight where none exists. People illustrate on a daily basis that our minds are capable of finding what we want to find even if it does not exist.
Abstract impressionist art can be amazing:
Duct taping a banana to a wall falls a bit short IMO.
You need a vibrant imagination to appreciate that painting. My interpretation of it is a garbage can with a huge monkey face, and an arm holding a "thumbs-up" gesture, while sitting on the deck of Noah's Ark.
That is part of the point of abstract art. Here is another interpretation. The monkey you see is actually the fact of an ancient aviator. The major scene (below) is that of a safe crash landing of an old aircraft with survivors walking around at the scene.
However, I just like the general look of this piece of art.
Would picture be looked at differently if I said that the "thumbs-up" was in fact the artist giving viewers the "middle-finger" salute?
I saw someone flying the bird. That probably says something about my own state of mind.
Very likely that it would influence the interpretation.
I'll know art when I see it, and a banana taped to a wall using poverty chrome is not it.
Grapes, cheese grater and a half empty tub of mouldy sour cream on a wall secured with rusty nails and a zip tie...
I'm gonna be rich.
Why does the strange and absurd always come from Florida...
Because it's so hot and the friggin' skeeters make you crazy
Wow! This . . . is garbage !
Now that I've seen this, I'm going to post an article I saw about the benefits of eating banana peels.
I DID post it - see for yourself.
ARE YOU READY FOR THIS?
The $120K banana at Art Basel eaten by NY performance artist
Now he can get a page in the Guiness Book of World Records for having eaten the most expensive banana in the world.
I feel like a “real artist” would eat the duct tape.
Only if it was cooked.
I was just thinking, France has the Mona Lisa, Spain has the Naked Maja, Israel has the Chagall Windows, and America has the Banana Taped to the Wall. It figures.
I'm still waiting for BF to Photoshop a banana on someone.