Man Eats $120,000 Piece Of Art...........

I can send you one for $60k, shipping and taxes included...

nothing is worth anything, but if your really hungry, and you are in dire need of potassium, and have the cash on hand, then it makes sense.


----Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

Hey Mario that is crazy!!! Was the guy arrested? I am outside the coffee shop bent in two, I see banana jokes coming, oh I will be first, why that monkey? lol, lol, lol. And were the heck was security?

I think it's all been a marvellous publicity stunt... That's what I think

I agree with you Abbie!!! Do you or others remember the solid painting with the white line down the middle, auctioned off for what 1,000,000.00 I think?

Yeah, I don't pay any attention to these kinds of stunts. I mean, we all know that there are people out there that even $120 million is chump change. How they want to waste their money to feed their egos is of no interest to me.

I’d like to see him try that with a pineapple.

I love it! Gives me a weird story to share with my students!!

https://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/visual-arts/art-basel/article238148809.html

"The $120,000 banana — a real, rather ripe and edible one — is the work of Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan and titled “Comedian.” The work comes with a Certificate of Authenticity, and owners are told that they can replace the banana, as needed."

Instructions on how to replace the banana are not included.

While the banana was indeed consumed, apparently that doesn’t diminish the integrity of the six-figure art work, said Lucien Terras, director of museum relations for Galerie Perrotin.

“He did not destroy the art work. The banana is the idea,” Terras said.

Confused?

We were, too, but that’s where the Certificate of Authenticity comes in. Collectors are buying the certificate. The banana is not made to last.




i like this part:

Gallery owner Emmanuel Perrotin was about to head to the airport when he heard that the banana was eaten. He darted to the space, clearly upset. A fair goer tried to cheer him up and handed him his own banana.

Perrotin and a gallery assistant re-adhered the borrowed banana to the wall just after 2 p.m.


everyone thought that the guy that ate the banana, was the artist, and he was not.


----Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

they said that thing has been photographed more than the mono lisa.


----Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

One of the galleries that I am in sent the director. She said that she has never seen such strange art and so many wealthy buyers buying that strange art in her life. And I am talking about a very experienced person who has worked at the best galleries including the one that she is currently running in New Orleans. People will just throw their money away while 'real artists' have to almost beg to sell their art. LOL Maybe we should invest in duct tape and fruit.

Whom am I to judge what is art or not, but I just ate a "real master piece" of a meal cooked by a sweet Italian 94 year old blind woman and it was really "priceless", best homemade ravioli I've had in years,this woman is a customer Alina and I did some work for and we just could not turn down such an invitation.

As for this monkey business, I mean this banana business, I think it was an orchestrated stunt to bring attention to the artists involved and the "art work", got to hand it to them though, it worked. :-)

I'm not quite there with "conceptual art" of this sort.

i'm wondering about the copyright infringement, and exactly how that would work or play out in court.


----Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

It seems like the sort of scam that makes people cynical about the art world, like anybody would pay the much for a stuck banana or that an artist would consider it as art or that critics and commentators would take notes and blitz the media about it. I recall, going to art museums and seeing things like a toilet on a platform with a plastic turd in it, or chunky barf. Those were not for sale, but they were in a museum with funds and donors and lectures and a gift shop, so I guess we were supposed to take it seriously or not seriously or something. I left it.

PT Barnum was never more correct. Professional wrestling is a sport too, by the way.

i remember in NY when they had the huff of a vivisected cow. it was made up in like 5 parts and i think cast in resin, put into display cabinets. not sure what happened to it. but it sure got the artist a lot of attention.


----Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

This is an example of how both the art world and the mass media are gamed. Already, a search about this event brings in over 7 million Google results. Basically, this stunt has acted as a story magnet for every major and minor print, tv and online media, thereby bringing the artist (cough, cough) probably 100x the value of the stunt.

For instance, the average television station charges advertisers a minimum $115,000 for a 30-second ad. A full page ad in a large newspaper costs about $150,000. Multiply that by hundreds of online and likely print articles, and we're in the hundreds of millions. But another bonus for the stuntmasters is that the credibility of a news story is much greater than if someone ran an ad to sell their art, or even put it in an auction. People believe news stories more than an ad.

I personally think a lot of this gaming the art world started with people like Warhol, who was just mocking the average art buyer and artworld's media outlets when he created stuff like a reproduction of a Campbell soup can, followed by a plain banana. People were simply buying his name, and that name-promoting and name-selling sport is what keeps the major auction houses raking in mega millions. The magic wand for all of this is calling something, anything, "ART". It seems that the so-called value of whatever something is takes precedence over the creativity involved in making it. Just my 2 cents. Al

FWIW, I went to small presentation where Warhol, his PR person (forgot his name) and Nico showed up. Warhol's longest sentence in reply to questions was either "yes" or "no." His PR guy was the chatty one. I actually walked up to Nico, who was the inspiration for the banana art he made for her first music album, and talked for a few minutes. She seemed totally blasé and uninterested in art. So did Warhol. So I got a peak behind the curtain of the art world, and saw there was nothing there, not even a wizard.

Marketing at it's finest.

This is art and I am very excited to say I have over a million dollars of bananas in my kitchen right at this very moment! I am entertaining offers for the grouping, FYI.

Bananas are SO last week. The newest trend in art is surely moving to green beans....gotta stay on the trend line.

The way I understood it. He ate the whole thing, not just a piece.

Now I understand why the boudin sausage duct taped to the wall was circulating on FB this week end. It was called Cajun Art.

Actually, no.... this was Andy's inspo for the banana art:

https://www.dailyartmagazine.com/the-story-velvet-underground-warhol-cover/

FWIW... I love Warhol, but also Lichtenstein and other Pop artists.

Let's not forget this other masterpiece: "Apple", 1966, Plexiglas pedestal, brass plaque, apple, 114.3 × 17 × 17.6 cm, installation view at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2015.
https://publicdelivery.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Yoko-Ono-Apple-1966-installation-view-at-the-Museum-of-Modern-Art-New-York-2015-photo-Anne-Wermiel-880x587.jpg

It's not the what, it's the who.

$120,000? That's not art, it's a snack. I'll sell you a duct taped banana for $50!

No. Man eats 50 cent piece of fruit. Calling that art is just silly.

The guy was way too relaxed, the crowd was all too willing to video him, no police were in sight, no museum officials seemed present or, if they were, then they were showing no concern whatsoever.

This was a publicity scam.

I just made a homemade banana pudding, by the way, and the price to purchase it is extraordinarily high -- I used SEVEN bananas, which comes out to $840,000 alone just for the fruit. If I figure in the cost of other materials, my labor, and overhead, then I'm thinking closer to a $million ought to cover it.

Do I hear $1,000,000 ?

If you take even one small bite without paying, then you WILL be arrested, tried, and imprisoned, I assure you. It's THAT good.

Robert I would think the thought alone would increase the price greatly.

Robert, can I just have the recipe? Lol! :-)

Nope, Mario, no go on the recipe -- it's proprietary info. (^_^)
.
.
.
.

Just kidding, ... let me give it a shot from memory:

1 1/4 cups sugar
5/8 cups flour
2 pinches salt

In a fairly large pot, combine the above three dry ingredients.

7 cups whole milk
1/2 vanilla bean

Measure out 1 cup of milk, and get it to room temperature.
Cut the vanilla bean longways, scrape out the vanilla goo, and add this to the 1 cup of milk (in a small bowl or jar -- I use a screw-top jar), along with the whole bean skins you just scrapped out -- allow this to soak for a few hours, so the milk absorbs lots of the vanilla bean flavor (I usually end up leaving it in the refrigerator overnight). Remove the bean skins (pods), before mixing with the other ingredients.

5 whole eggs

In a large bowl, beat the five whole eggs, then add all the milk (the cup of vanilla milk, plus the other six cups of milk).
Add the beaten eggs to the milk and mix together.

Pour the milk/egg mixture into the pot with the sugar/flour mixture and stir it until smooth and well mixed.
Place this pot over medium heat, stir constantly with a whisk, until the mixture starts to easily bubble/boil.
Turn off the heat and allow to bubble a couple more minutes (do not overcook and do not turn the heat any higher or you will scorch the pudding).
The stirring part takes a while, and so you have to be patient and wait for thickening to start happening -- seems like forever, but once it starts, it progresses fast, within a couple minutes.

5 tablespoons unsalted butter

Add the butter (I cut it into about five chunks) and stir to melt into the now cooked vanilla pudding.
Allow the pudding to cool for a couple of hours -- hot pudding dissolves the wafers.

7 RIPE bananas (they have to have spots) -- they MUST be of the proper ripeness [not as ripe as banana-bread bananas, but well spotted, so they're sweet]
2 boxes of store bought vanilla wafers

Start layering the finished product, first a layer of wafers, a layer of cut bananas, a generous layer of vanilla pudding, repeated in this order until all your pudding is used.
I use a round plastic covered container for assembling, so that I can easily cover and store in the refrigerator, as it gets eaten.
Place the wafers one at time, to cover the entire bottom of whatever container you are using, and do the same with the banana slices. You want a "wall-to-wall" layer of wafers, a "wall-to-wall" layer of banana slices, and a "wall-to-wall" layer of pudding for each tier of assembly.

You can use several containers, if you don't have one large enough to hold all the ingredients.
You will NOT use two entire boxes of wafers -- you will probably get by with just one box, but I always buy two, because I come up short by four or five wafers on this quantity of the dish.

I use vanilla bean now, instead of vanilla extract, because I have found that the alcohol residual taste in the extract subtly interferes with the acidity of the bananas, even when I use my own homemade extract. The pure bean just makes a smoother-tasting dish, in my opinion. Vanilla beans are expensive, I know, but if you want to make a million-dollar banana pudding, you're just gonna have to chuck out the change.

I hope I got all that right. I know lots of recipes call for using just egg yellows for the pudding -- I've tried this, but the result is too dense and sticky for my taste -- US Southern style uses the whole egg, which makes for a slightly less dense, less sticky, more melt-in-your-mouth texture. And I don't add any meringue either.

If you make one of these, then don't put it on a stand in a museum somewhere, or if you do, then have law enforcement nearby to protect your masterpiece, until your Sotheby's auction commences.

Thank you Robert! Sounds so good my mouth is watering, I will see if I can try this for the holidays, the 1 1/4 cups of sugar will probably kill me but at least I'll die with a smile on my face. :-)

I forgot one detail, which I will add to my previous recipe: Before mixing the vanilla milk into the other milk, REMOVE the vanilla bean PODS.

And just remember, you're not eating the whole 1 1/4 cups of sugar at once.

Some people would say that the sugar in bananas would kill you, because ripe bananas are very sugary naturally, but they've got all that fiber to mediate it. Obviously, I completely disagree with health people who discourage banana eating because of the natural sugar content. I eat bananas ... every ... single ... day, ... and have been for decades.

I haven't done the calorie breakdown for a serving, but that might be an interesting future exercise that I do.

Do I hear $1.5 million? Going once, going twice, .....................

Just wondering according to the banana story two of them have sold. It is a series of three , I think, I heard they were raising the price on number three. Does anyone know if this is true?

i'm curious how they will pack it for travel. i can see them wrapping the banana real carefully. but the tape would be hard because its sticky.


----Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

That incudes shipping and handling!

Mario,

My original posting of my banana-art sculpture (i.e., banana pudding), remember, I did from memory. I thought I had it all right, after my last comment about it, but, crap, I noted the wrong amount of sugar -- TOO LITTLE -- it should be TWO and 1/4 cups sugar.

Since the time has past for me to edit that original posting of the recipe, I will post it again below, with the corrections:

2 1/4 cups sugar
5/8 cups flour
2 pinches salt

In a fairly large pot, combine the above three dry ingredients.

7 cups whole milk
1/2 vanilla bean

Measure out 1 cup of milk, and get it to room temperature.
Cut the vanilla bean longways, scrape out the vanilla goo, and add this to the 1 cup of milk (in a small bowl or jar -- I use a screw-top jar), along with the whole bean skins you just scrapped out -- allow this to soak for a few hours, so the milk absorbs lots of the vanilla bean flavor (I usually end up leaving it in the refrigerator overnight). Remove the bean skins (pods), before mixing with the other ingredients.

5 whole eggs

In a large bowl, beat the five whole eggs, then add all the milk (the cup of vanilla milk, plus the other six cups of milk).
Add the beaten eggs to the milk and mix together.

Pour the milk/egg mixture into the pot with the sugar/flour mixture and stir it until smooth and well mixed.
Place this pot over medium heat, stir constantly with a whisk, until the mixture starts to easily bubble/boil.
Turn off the heat and allow to bubble a couple more minutes (do not overcook and do not turn the heat any higher or you will scorch the pudding).
The stirring part takes a while, and so you have to be patient and wait for thickening to start happening -- seems like forever, but once it starts, it progresses fast, within a couple minutes.

5 tablespoons unsalted butter

Add the butter (I cut it into about five chunks) and stir to melt into the now cooked vanilla pudding.
Allow the pudding to cool for a couple of hours -- hot pudding dissolves the wafers.

7 RIPE bananas (they have to have spots) -- they MUST be of the proper ripeness [not as ripe as banana-bread bananas, but well spotted, so they're sweet]
2 boxes of store bought vanilla wafers

Start layering the finished product, first a layer of wafers, a layer of cut bananas, a generous layer of vanilla pudding, repeated in this order until all your pudding is used.
I use a round plastic covered container for assembling, so that I can easily cover and store in the refrigerator, as it gets eaten.
Place the wafers one at time, to cover the entire bottom of whatever container you are using, and do the same with the banana slices. You want a "wall-to-wall" layer of wafers, a "wall-to-wall" layer of banana slices, and a "wall-to-wall" layer of pudding for each tier of assembly.

You can use several containers, if you don't have one large enough to hold all the ingredients.
You will NOT use two entire boxes of wafers -- you will probably get by with just one box, but I always buy two, because I come up short by four or five wafers on this quantity of the dish.

I use vanilla bean now, instead of vanilla extract, because I have found that the alcohol residual taste in the extract subtly interferes with the acidity of the bananas, even when I use my own homemade extract. The pure bean just makes a smoother-tasting dish, in my opinion.

Now about that wall banana:

https://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2019/12/banana-duct-tape-to-wall-sells-for-120-thousand-dollars-art-basel-miami

The Comedian was sold to a French woman by Paris-based gallery Perrotin. A second edition was sold shortly after to a French man for the same price. The gallery owner Emmanuel Perrotin told Artnet he and Cattelan have also agreed to sell a third edition to a museum for $150,000.

And here I am giving away my concept of a seven-banana, three-dimensional work of art for free! ... I must be crrrrrrrrrrrrrrrazy!

Seems like the the video I posted in the OP was taken down because you tube closed the account of the person who posted it.

Hello Mario and others, has anyone seen the news about a zoo placing a banana on a wall with tuck tape. The chips go over to the wall one of the chips could not reach it he took a stick and brings it down. This was on local news or national not sure but can not find the video? It was a take off from the guy at the exhibit who takes the banana off the wall and eats it....

Michael,copy cats! Lol! A member here advised me of a listing on ebay for a light bulb duct taped to a wall, asking price $125,000. :-)

See, someone eats a banana and a light bulb goes off.

That whole banana-on-the-wall artwork is a copyright violation:

(a) because the artist used somebody else's wall, painted by somebody else, using somebody else's paint
(b) because the artist used somebody else's duct-tape design--engineering-production
(c) because the artist used part of nature's creation and called it his own

Can banana's even be copyrighted? -- I don't think so, which makes my list even more absurd. (^_^)

If I were to go for a banana I think one in the grocery market would be much fresher. (I hate soft brown bananas)

Of course it was all publicity. :)

Without the arbitrary and ridiculous value publicized, this would be called vandalism, and the fruity duct-taper would be fined. But add a value, notify the press to get it published, tell them it's "art," and a swarm of hypnotized people will fly to it like bees to honey. As Mark Twain once said, "Money is honey my little sonny, and a rich man's joke is always funny."

Hello Mario, cracking up laughing, "copy cats". That chimp new exactly what to do he picked up a stick and flip it under the masking tape, then the banana fell to the ground, he looks at the tip of the stick with masking tape, takes and throws it to the ground, picks up the banana and all the the other chimps looked at him, lol, lol, lol.

Michael, here are some more copy cats! Lol!

"Hong Kong police slip on banana peel with tear gas tweet" Here is the story: https://www.yahoo.com/news/hong-kong-police-slip-banana-042303524.html

Well, the banana prompted me to post this. My printer broke. I yanked out the paper, making scratches and smears. In frustration, I scanned the print and posted it somewhere. This was the 3 year anniversary and when I looked back it has more responses than any other picture of mine, all positive. I threw away the actual print but still had the scanned image. What can I say.

It's my version of the banana taped to the wall. I don't get it but, if there's someone out there who wants to pay $120K for a terrific picture of Times Square around Christmas, I'm up for it. The metadata says 42nd Street, but I'm not sure of the exact location.

There's one born every minute. Art is in the eye of the beholder. Art is what you say it is. It's the art world after all and nobody actually HAS to buy it.

https://fineartamerica.com/featured/times-square-accident-doug-swanson.html

All this is hilarious! Just in case any collectors with deep pockets happen to be reading, I will be happy to staple a chicken nugget to any of my prints for only $2500.

http://www.freakingnews.com/God-Giving-Adam-a-Banana-Pics-80038.asp

Shocking!

Not the banana thing, but the fact that Cynthia D actually made an appearance. (^_^) -- she doesn't come around here very often. I pissed her off once, but I don't think that's the reason. If one were so inclined, comparing her art to the banana thing would be like comparing a modern skyscraper to a homeless person's cardboard box.

Brian W,

Soft brown bananas are THE choice ingredient for the best banana bread. Better still are bananas so ripe that they have turned black. I have some black bananas in the freezer (yes, you can freeze those), which I will eventually use for this exact purpose.

QUESTION: As the banana rots, what happens to the value of the ... "art work" ? From Brian's perspective, the value goes down. From my perspective, the value goes up, but not indefinitely. At some point, the value becomes zero -- when the slime and mold start to set in, or maybe not, because they still can add great nutrients to the compost heap -- transformative art, right? There's just no end to the value of that darn banana, so it seems.

Per Cynthia D's idea, I will be glad to slop a spoon of my 7-banana pudding onto one of my paintings, for the very reasonable price of $500. It's my latest concept -- visual/edible art. It's a mixed-media concept. The eating of the slopped-on pudding by the buyer represents the fugitive nature of life and youth. It further highlights the value of good taste, while enabling the viewer, uh ... taster, to engage fully with the work.

The value is not variable according to the ripeness of the banana. The certificate of authenticity gives the owner permission to change the banana whenever they wish. I’m not sure but I would think it would be the same for the tape.

Robert K,

It's all about the texture!

So, we've got eating bananas, baking bananas, and art bananas.

Art bananas intended for taping to walls are probably best on the green side.
Baking bananas are best on the black side.
Eating bananas are best somewhere in between -- yellow with some brown speckling.

My dogs and I share a banana at breakfast every morning.

Just a fact nobody wanted to know

Abbie,

Actually, it's a fact good to know, because I can relate (believe it or not) -- my latest dog (turns 1 year old today) has been sharing a banana with me every single day almost since we got him.

I take a bite, ... bite off a piece and feed it to him, I take another bite, ... bite off another piece for him, ... and so on, until it's eaten. Like yours, he's a banana animal, ... still not as well behaved, I'm sure, but hopefully he'll get there (still working on it).