Have people gone mad?

[username358]

Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan's "Comedian," a conceptual artwork comprising a banana stuck to a wall with duct tape, sold on Wednesday for $6.24 million at a Sotheby's auction in New York.

When a banana duct-taped to a wall sold for $120,000 in 2019, social media uproar and an age-old debate about the meaning of art ensued.

But artist Maurizio Cattelan’s viral creation, titled “Comedian,” has proven a sound investment for one collector: One of the artwork’s three “editions” smashed estimates to sell for $6.24 million at a Sotheby’s auction in New York on Wednesday.
https://www.cnn.com/style/duct-taped-banana-maurizio-cattelan-auction-hnk-intl/index.html

AIBU to think the world's gone mad? Someone has paid 6m to keep sticking a banana on a wall with duct tape.

I'm not crazy about bananas but would you accept £2.80 for a pear?

I have heard many a rumour of expensive "art" being a cover for trafficked children....

I think part of the appeal of this kind of art is the reaction that people have to it. Everyone on this thread has an opinion which has fed into the debate.

And to everyone that says, my 5 year old could do better than that, why are you not already living off the proceeds of their artworks?

I hope the banana farmer got paid handsomely

It's a tax dodge.

Because sadly when my kids were 5 we didn't have a handy in to a leading London gallery...

Many years ago a chap round here sold 'abstract art' of brightly coloured splashes of paint that made tracks across the paper. Lots of commentary about the skilful use of colour, pattern, texture, the significance of the spacing, blah blah blah.

It eventually turned out that he had a pet duck. He'd dip its feet in paint and send it out onto the paper. When it wandered off the paper, he'd rinse its feet and try another colour. When the artwork looked about right, Ducky was back in the run and the painting was hung up to dry...

Art is subjective.

Hilarious. Fools and their money are easily parted.
Well done to the “artist”. Wish I’d had the “concept” 😁

@MrsSkylerWhite It could be said that the answer to people who say "I could've done that" is "but you didn't..."

Seriously though I think its money laundering. It seems the most likely explanation.

That's exactly what i thought when my colleague shared this story on our team chat.
I was going to tell them and then realised they are all so much younger than me they probably wouldn't know what I was on about!

My husband said the same thing

This is something that fascinates me. Who decides what is 'art' and what isn't?

I’ve often wondered that and I asked an art dealer who said “the market decides”. But who decides what the market is going to decide?

I've got two granny smiths here and I'm making my debut as an artist with my first piece, titled 'How do you like those apples?', available to the highest bidder.

UPDATE: The man who bought the work has eaten the banana. Here he is:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cqj051glrr9o

The world truly has gone bananas.

I find the whole thing sickening. In the UK alone one in three children are in poverty and you've got a banana on a wall worth 6m.

It’s a very old fashioned and unsophisticated view, but when you compare a pile of bricks, or a banana stuck to the wall, with something like this

https://www.chatsworth.org/visit-chatsworth/chatsworth-estate/art-archives/devonshire-collections/sculpture/a-veiled-vestal-virgin/

I find it very difficult to see how the banana and bricks can be called “art”. I mean, someone was skilled enough to make stone look like diaphanous silk. You can look at that and marvel. What’s to marvel at in the bloody banana, other than the profligacy of the idiot who paid for it? That’s not art.

@LoobyDoop2 that sculpture of the vestal virgin is so beautiful. Apparently it’s had to be roped off so people can’t get too close as everyone was touching the veil as they couldn’t believe it was marble and not fabric.

I think the subject of what art is is complex but in this case it's a statement on vulgar displays of wealth, how something is given a price and the disparity of wealth.

So it's not the actual object which is the art but what it represents in this world of famines and billionaires.

Billionaires are about to test the foundations of democracy in the US.