That Layered Art

Art, museums, galleries—I have had the good fortune of visiting some really amazing ones this year. Before I write about all that I must post this piece about the duct-taped banana. It was worth sharing, even if people have forgotten all about it, rather than allowing it to rot in my drafts folder. Sometimes it just felt frivolous amid other significant happenings around me. But that’s exactly when trivial pursuits work. 

One need not be an art critic to identify art. Like millions of people I was also aghast at the exorbitant amount for which Maurizio Cattelan's artwork of a banana duct-taped to a wall was sold at Southeby’s in New York. The "Comedian" installation of the Italian visual artist was intentionally absurd and provocative, a statement about the art world, I read somewhere.  

Then I tried to dig deep to find its meaning from a layman’s perspective. There were plenty of layers to peel so to speak. 

The duct-taped banana was not an ordinary fruit stuck on any wall. The wall of the gallery is as significant as the artwork. It doesn’t exist in vacuum. Only an established artist is allowed access to these hallowed walls. Whatever the artist decides to place on the wall becomes art, automatically. A blank wall also could have elicited a similar response with regard to its artistic value.

Just look at the ripe yellow banana and the grey duct tape set against the backdrop of the empty wall. It embodies the philosophy of life: valuable yet transient. Abundantly available in nature, but when taken for granted even a banana could become scarce, precious and seen only in artworks and museums. A real wake-up call to the perils of climate change. Expect the unexpected, it seems to announce to the world.

Nothing is more perfect than a duct-tape to show the precarious nature of the world we live in. It is seemingly holding the banana in place but can’t really guarantee its protection from a hungry passerby.  It can also rot in place. Whereas the tape is indestructible, it has no use once taken off the wall. Juxtaposing the live, real, bright banana against the lifeless, manufactured, dull duct tape speaks of the dichotomies that exist in the world that is losing a lot of its natural resources. Does a duct-tape suffice to keep the earth and its treasures, which we take for granted, afloat?   

The taped banana - now perhaps one of the most expensive fruits ever sold - was actually bought for a mere $0.35. It’s like one of the personal memorabilia of a celebrity, multiplying its value by mere association. People add value to seemingly everyday objects. One person’s scrap is another’s treasure.

In fact, the fruit has been eaten more than once; art consumption redefined. The installation – which has travelled around the world – came with specific instructions on how to replace the banana whenever it rots or gets eaten. Because not anyone can use a duct-tape and a banana in any which way and call it art. It’s an art unto itself. Minimalistic yet profound, like a haiku.