People Won't Stop Eating The $6.2 Million Banana

BBC - A Chinese-born cryptocurrency entrepreneur has followed through on his promise to eat the banana from a $6.2m (£4.9m) artwork he bought last week.

Justin Sun outbid six others to claim Maurizio Cattelan's infamous 2019 work Comedian - a banana duct-taped to a wall - at Sotheby's auction house in New York.

He ate the fruit during a news conference in Hong Kong where he used the moment to draw parallels between the artwork and cryptocurrency.

The banana is regularly replaced before exhibitions, with Mr Sun buying the right to display the installation along with a guide on how to replace the fruit.

As with any blog I write regarding ridiculous fucking art. Art that I'll never understand why anybody pays what they pay for it (except to launder money). I always include this clip from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. To this day I'm yet to hear someone better explain what makes art, art than the Golden God himself, Dennis Reynolds.

If the right people say the art is good art, then it's good art. That's about all there is to it. And nobody is demonstrating that concept better than the people perpetuating this 'banana duct taped to a wall' charade. It's been a long time since I've read an article that made me feel stupider... or angrier... or maybe even smarter? No definitely not smarter... Idk what this article made me feel honestly... Mostly just poor.

BBC - Maurizio Cattelan's provocative artwork of a banana duct-taped to a wall has fetched $6.2m (£4.9m) at Sotheby's in New York - four times higher than pre-sale estimates.

The auction house says Chinese cryptocurrency entrepreneur Justin Sun outbid six other rivals to get the "Comedian" installation of the Italian visual artist on Wednesday.

"In the coming days, I will personally eat the banana as part of this unique artistic experience," Mr Sun was quoted as saying.

The taped banana - now perhaps one of the most expensive fruits ever sold - was actually bought earlier in the day for a mere $0.35, according to the New York Times.

"Comedian" was first unveiled to the public in 2019, instantly becoming a viral sensation and also provoking heated debates about what art is.

The installation - which has travelled around the world - comes with instructions on how to replace the banana whenever it rots.

In fact, the fruit has been eaten not once, but twice. In 2023, a South Korean art student helped himself when the installation went on display at Seoul's Leeum Museum of Art. The museum later placed a new banana in the same spot, local media reported.

Four years earlier, a performance artist pulled the banana from the wall after the artwork was sold for $120,000 at Art Basel in Miami. The banana was swiftly replaced, and no further action was taken.

So the $6.2M banana he ate isn't the same banana he bought? Well of course not. It couldn't be. Bananas rot almost instantly. But then what does the owner of the art actually own? The duct tape? Or does the duct tape get replaced too? It probably does. So they just receive the coveted instructions on how to replace the banana when it rots? Because aside from the instructions, this art isn't even a tangible thing. It's just the idea of (or the act of?) taping a banana to a wall. This is the 3rd time the exhibit's banana has been eaten. But eating the banana doesn't destroy the art. It only makes the art stronger. It adds to the art's history. 

So what exactly is that $6.2 million attached to? What is it backed by? Because obviously if I break into Justin Sun's house and go full Gallagher on his multi-million dollar piece of fruit, he just would have bought a new one. He wouldn't be out any money. I wouldn't have sledgehammered away $6.2 million worth of property. In anything the price of the art would probably go up. It'd make for great banana art lore. Justin Sun paid $6.2 million so that a small group of extremely wealthy art people who look like Ongo Goblogian will point to him and say, "Any time that guy tapes a banana to a wall it's worth a lot of money. If you want to be the banana guy then you have to buy the rights from him."

It's all insane. It's nothing more than bored rich people passing their money around. It truly is something made for laundering money. The only thing the money is "attached to" or "backed by" is an idea. And maybe a set of instructions. That idea is worth however much money the rich art people want to put on it. Which I guess is similar what NFT's are. And I guess that's the kinda the point that Mr. Sun is trying to make. To draw parallels between NFT's and art.

Cryptocurrencies are digital currencies that operate independent of banks, offering the potential of very secure decentralised transactions.

Mr Sun compared the artwork, and other abstract pieces like it, to NFTs.

These "non-fungible tokens" are pieces of digital artwork that have no intrinsic value, other than that prescribed by people.

Why he's wants to make that point other than to give a big fuck you to the poor fruit stand woman on the street corner who sold him the banana for $0.35? No clue. Maybe he's trying to shine a light on how fucking stupid the world of art is. That's my main takeaway from this. The world of art is stupid. I'm poor. Rich people are so bored. I'm sure Justin Sun will hold onto his $6.2 million for a while. Eventually he'll give his $6.2 million dollars to another Ongo Goblogian in exchange for $7.4 million dollars. Then they'll get to do the banana thing for a while. It'll be sold a few more times. The price will keep going up. Until some day when shit hits the fan and the economy crashes, whoever bought it last will be sitting there with a set of instructions and their dick in their hand wondering why nobody wants to give up their life savings to be the banana guy anymore.