Kelly Crow, of the Wall Street Journal, reports that the artist, Maurizio Cattelan, taped a banana to a wall with duct tape at an Art Basel exhibition in Miami. When Cattelan debuted the art, he ripped it off the wall and ate it. Justin Sun paid $6.2M for that banana. (link to WSJ article)
I believe Cattelan makes an ironic statement with his piece — the commoditization of the art market. It’s no different than the urinal piece often credited to Duchamp. John Cage wrote a piece called “4’33” which is 4 minutes and 33 seconds of total silence. The culture decided that these pieces — all of them — are significant — 6.2M significant.
I see the irony though. A banana and duct tape has to cost ~$10. It’s absurd that someone would pay so much for something that costs so little — it’s because the culture decided that the banana on the wall is valuable. The piece itself is a critique of the absurdity of the art market. And the art market, in the end, paid an absurd price for it.
How much do we allow the collective culture to inform our valuation of things?
