Art and the spectacle
You’ve probably all heard by now about that banana. On Wednesday, Sotheby’s auction house sold Italian artist and “our reigning artist-provocateur” Maurizio Cattelan’s piece entitled Comedian for $6.2 million, including fees. Consisting of a banana duct taped to the wall, Comedian “represents a cultural phenomenon that bridges the worlds of art, memes, and the cryptocurrency community,” as sterilely described by its new crypto-bro owner, Justin Sun.
Maurizio Cattelan, Comedian. Photo by Sarah Cascone via ArtNet.
Sun will be the owner of a 14-page instruction manual on how to install the banana, which should be replaced at his own expense as often as it rots, although he has stated he plans on eating the banana once he receives it. A roll of silver duct tape was said to also be included. Yet Sun’s blasé gastronomic plan seems to be an unequivocal response to Cattelan’s critique of our values system:
“To me, Comedian was not a joke; it was a sincere commentary and a reflection on what we value. 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. I can’t say how people will react, but I hope these new works will break up the normal viewing habits and open a discussion on what really matters. We are surrounded by conversations based on immaterial structures, social values and hierarchies that we created, but usually we prefer to forget this; it’s like being anesthetized.”
Cattelan’s previous sculptural work is often described as having a touch of the controversial. La Nona Ora (The Ninth Hour, 1999), which features Pope John Paul II lying on the ground crushed by a meteorite, echoes Christ's final moments on the cross. By challenging the idea of immutability, Cattelan critiques the Catholic Church’s hidden scandals, while also symbolizing the vulnerability of traditional institutions in a secular world. Him (2001), an unsettling sculpture of Hitler knelt in apparent prayer, sparks reflections on national memory, repentance, and challenges whether forgiveness is possible for someone who embodies such radical evil. There was also the functional 18-carat gold toilet installed at the Guggenheim, entitled America.
Maurizio Cattelan, La Nona Ora (The Ninth Hour), 1999
Other artistic interventions by Cattelan provide more pointed institutional critique. For his participation in the 1993 Venice Biennial, Cattelan leased his space to an advertising agency, installed a billboard for a new perfume, pocketed the cash. In 1999, he partnered with German curator Jens Hoffman to stage a faux biennial in St. Kitts, complete with press release and a list of prestigious invitees…but no art. Invited guests merely spent a week frolicking in the Caribbean sun, a beguiling parody of the hedonistic culture of high-profile exhibits and biennials.
Maurizio Cattelan, Him, 2001.
These institutional critiques are more to the point of Comedian and its particular relevance to current grievances about wealth inequality and the unfettered power of institutions and corporations. The art market in the United States only allows for an artist to receive royalties upon the first sale of the piece; when Cattelan sold three editions of Comedian after Art Basel Miami, ranging from $120,000-$150,000, he cashed in. The millions to be forked over in Sun’s own crypto (granting Sotheby’s accepts it—they made concessions for accepting payment in more popular e-currencies) will be paid out to the auction house and the seller, with no provision for Cattelan himself.
Art critic Calvin Tomkins interviewed Cattelan for a 2004 New Yorker piece entitled “The Prankster,” in which he noted the artists tendency to highlight these inequities:
“More often, though, he will insist that his work is about everyday problems and the struggle to get by in life. ‘Listen,’ he told [Tomkins] in the taxi coming back from Clichy, ‘I have the answer to the question you were asking, about how do I come up with such and such an idea. The answer is that I don't use my brain, I use my stomach. It's the same as when you recognize danger.’”
Naming that danger feels inordinately obvious. The banana that went on sale at Sotheby’s on Wednesday was purchased for 35 cents that morning from street vendor from Bangladesh. That evening it sold for “several thousand times its original price.” By satirizing the international art market, Cattelan offers a scathing critique, of the system of which he is a participant, one that admittedly skews to favor and reward institutions and sellers over creatives and their representatives.
This kind of art doesn’t work without someone like Justin Sun, someone who, by virtue of exorbitant expendable income, is all too willing to answer Castellan’s theoretical question, “On what basis does an object acquire value in the art system?” I guess we must be thankful for the chumps.
Zachary Small, writing for The New York Times asked, “Who’s laughing now?” I think the answer is quite clearly Cattelan, at us, and the gaping chasm of inequality we’ve allowed to tower over us in a post-capitalist world.
