The banana as post-symbolic currency

This is a brief response to the hullaballoo concerning a duct-taped banana. Naive knee-jerk responses have been anticipated by both artist and buyer, both aware of their roles in this game of post-symbolic trade. 

It's a basic error to view an art transaction as having any basis in the object itself. This has obviously been false for some time, else even a representational painting (la Gioconda, say) would not be worth one billion dollars. That is a mad figure since no matter how good the artist, the painting is not 100 million times as "good" as another.

One might criticise/defend the waste/investment of money on the basis of the work's functionality, reproducibility, and so on. But it's understood (I would hope) that the purported value incorporates a web of cultural associations, historical resonances, and aesthetic interpretations that fan out from the object in endless tendrils of association. Not to mention how much you can make, over time, from Louvre ticket sales. 

Maurizio Cattelan's Comedian (2019) was already a joke, as its content, presentation, and title make plain. To make fun of the piece after the fact is a pathetic response. Such reactions come too late to have any effect on an art world already deeply self-knowing, self-critical, and self-involved. One may as well critique the bone flute of proto-human ritual as "something even my child could make".

It might help (or further annoy) to know that Comedian comes in editions, three of which have already sold for prices between 120 and 150 kilobucks. Though the most recent purchase at $6.2 million did indeed trump (ahem) those valuations. Now, that's a lot of money to you or I, but is it really a meaningful amount to Justin Sun, a cryptocurrency "investor"? 

Crypto is a pyramid scheme even more obviously unethical than the stock market. In fact, I once believed that crypto was invented specifically to highlight just how broken monetary investment is, so as to undo the entire structure. It hasn't worked out that way, because people are willing to believe in illusory value right up until the moment their investment disappears into worthless stock in the South Sea Company. Or tulips. Somehow, it's fitting to transform dark earnings from crypto into the similarly tainted currency of conceptual art.

Sun has exchanged the symbolic assurances of megabucks for the symbolic irreverence of a taped banana. This transaction was performed as a self-evident joke. In truth, nothing was even sold; no, not even a banana. The auction was for a certificate of authenticity. This gives Sun permission to duct-tape his own banana to a wall and call it Comedian. 

"Additionally, in the coming days, I will personally eat the banana as part of this unique artistic experience, honoring its place in both art history and popular culture," Sun said.

Any of us could do the same, even without a certificate, and the act would be identical. Or... would it?

For me this gets a pass. I don't like bananas.

Credit: The image is a still from a 3D rendering by bvchepovyi, CC BY 4.0.

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