Now, the conceptual paintings has an estimated worth of between US$1 million and US$1.5 million at Sotheby’s public sale on Nov 20. Sotheby’s head of latest artwork, David Galperin, calls it profound and provocative.
“What Cattelan is absolutely doing is popping a mirror to the modern artwork world and asking questions, scary thought of how we ascribe worth to artworks, what we outline as an paintings,” Galperin mentioned.
Bidders will not be shopping for the identical fruit that was on show in Miami. These bananas are lengthy gone. Sotheby’s says the fruit at all times was meant to get replaced often, together with the tape.
“What you purchase if you purchase Cattelan’s ‘Comic’ will not be the banana itself, however a certificates of authenticity that grants the proprietor the permission and authority to breed this banana and duct tape on their wall as an authentic paintings by Maurizio Cattelan,” Galperin mentioned.
The very title of the piece suggests Cattelan himself seemingly did not intend for it to be taken severely. However Chloé Cooper Jones, an assistant professor on the Columbia College Faculty of the Arts, mentioned it’s price enthusiastic about the context.
Cattelan premiered the work at an artwork honest, visited by well-off artwork collectors, the place “Comic” was certain to get numerous consideration on social media. Which may imply the artwork constituted a dare, of kinds, to the collectors to spend money on one thing absurd, she mentioned.
If “Comic” is only a device for understanding the insular, capitalist, art-collecting world, Cooper Jones mentioned, “it’s not that fascinating of an concept.”
However she thinks it would transcend poking enjoyable at wealthy individuals.
Cattelan is commonly considered a “trickster artist, ,she mentioned. “However his work is commonly on the intersection of the form of humour and the deeply macabre. He’s very often taking a look at methods of scary us, not only for the sake of provocation, however to ask us to look into a few of the form of darkest components of historical past and of ourselves.”
And there’s a darkish facet to the banana, a fruit with a historical past entangled with imperialism, labour exploitation and company energy.
“It will be exhausting to provide you with a greater, easy image of worldwide commerce and all of its exploitations than the banana,” Cooper Jones mentioned. If “Comic” is about making individuals take into consideration their ethical complicity within the manufacturing of objects they take with no consideration, then it is “not less than a extra great tool or it’s not less than a further form of place to go by way of the questions that this work might be asking”, she mentioned.
“Comic” hits the block across the similar time that Sotheby’s can also be auctioning one of many famed work within the “Water Lilies” collection by the French impressionist Claude Monet, with an anticipated worth of round US$60 million.
When requested to check Cattelan’s banana to a traditional like Monet’s “Nymphéas”, Galperin says impressionism was not thought of artwork when the motion started.
“No essential, profound, significant paintings of the previous 100 years or 200 years, or our historical past for that matter, didn’t provoke some sort of discomfort when it was first unveiled,” Galperin mentioned.