Comedian, Heroine, and America!
Intrigued by the title of this blog? Comedian and Heroine are performance artists, but how is America related to them? Read on to find out.
Sun will eat a banana #
Following
the banana-eating habits of the Chinese is not among my several queer hobbies;
but I’ll make an exception for Justin Sun, who plans to eat the banana he
bought on 20 Nov 2024 at Sotheby’s auction for $6.2 million (INR 52 crores). The
new owner said, “In the coming days, I plan to personally (italics mine)
eat the banana as part of this unique artistic experience.”
(Hi, Mr. Sun.
Do you sometimes eat a banana impersonally?)
Why didn’t
Sun eat it right away, you might wonder? Well, the auction took place at New
York, the winning bid was submitted by his agent while Sun watched the
proceedings from Hongkong!
Once the banana
is flown to Hongkong, after paying the freight, insurance, export and import
duties, and satisfying the customs officials that the banana met the prescribed
standards (Maximum Residue Limit, Traceability, Phyto-sanitary, etc.); Sun will
eventually get to eat the banana he bought, no longer very fresh but hopefully
before expiry of the ‘Eat By’ date. Possibly, he will eat his Fruit Art in a
public ceremony under media coverage, and not in the privacy of his penthouse
in a Hongkong high-rise building.
Cattelan's
Justin Sun, a
smart cryptocurrency entrepreneur, didn’t buy an ordinary banana for 52 crores;
he bought the third iteration of ‘Comedian’ created by the Italian artist Maurizio
Cattelan.
“No other
artwork from the twenty-first century has provoked scandal, sparked
imagination, and upended the very definition of contemporary art like Maurizio
Cattelan’s Comedian, whose debut at Art Basel Miami Beach in December 2019
captivated the world.” (Sothebys.com)
The artist had bought the solitary Cavendish
yellow banana from a super-store, and fastened it on the museum wall with a strip
of silver-colour duct tape. The artefact became an instant sensation, and sold
for $120000, but was eaten during the show on 22 Dec 2019 by David Datuna, a
visitor who felt ‘hungry’.
Cattelan’s
art was eaten, once again, by Noh Huyn-soo, a South Korean college student who during
his visit to Seoul’s Leeum Museum of Art yanked the banana off the wall and ate
it ignoring the alarmed cry of a museum staffer. When he was done, he
reattached the peel to its spot on the wall. (www.npr.org)
‘Hungry kya?
Banana-Art kha!’ That could be the catchy slogan to sell an innovative product,
Edible Art, for the 21st century’s loaded connoisseurs hungry
for unique artistic experience.
‘America’: Solid Gold Toilet
In 2016, Cattelan
had created ‘America,’ a solid gold toilet; the artist’s satirical commentary on wealth,
excess, and the American dream. First exhibited at the Solomon R. Guggenheim
Museum in New York City, where it was installed in one of the museum's
bathrooms for visitors to use. Over 100,000 people reportedly waited in line to
experience it.
The artwork was later loaned to Blenheim
Palace in the UK, where it was installed in a water closet formerly used by
Winston Churchill. Unfortunately, it was stolen in September 2019, causing
significant damage and flooding to the historic site. The stolen artwork has
not yet been recovered. Are the perpetrators of the heist putting it to good
use, or have they deposited it in a secure vault to be taken out and sold at an
opportune time?
It is
rumoured that a Chief Minister with exemplary frugal habits in public was inexplicably
seized with a craving for a daily exquisite experience in total privacy
for which ten golden pots were installed at his official residence. Why ten?
Did he use a different washroom each day, or merely wished to share the heavenly
delight with other members of the family? PWD officials, possibly ordered by
the Competent Authority, inspected the premises but found the precious items
missing. How uncannily close to the heist of America?
Invisible Art
In 2022, an Invisible
Artwork by French artist Yves Klein sold for more than $1 Million at
Sotheby’s. The winning bidder received a receipt for a “zone of empty space,”
created by Klein in 1959.
“Klein sold
several such invisible “zones”—each instantiated by a receipt—between 1959 and
his death in 1962, accepting only pure gold as payment. Usually, the exchange
occasioned a ritual: the purchaser of the artwork would burn the receipt while
Klein himself would drop half of the gold into the Seine river. The act,
according to the artist, “rebalanced the natural order” between buyer
and seller.” (news.artnet.com)
Prasanna's
Nov 22, 2024
is a memorable day for Prasanna, a late-blooming artist who created his debut masterpiece
Heroine by fastening a humble vegetable to a photo-frame with a strip of
cream-colour duct-tape, elevating it to an artwork. His previous artworks in
collaboration with DALL-E and Bing Image Creator are not counted since those were created in
partnership; with ideas by the human artist and execution by AI.
Title 1: Heroine,
No Comedienne!
Title 2: Edible
Art, No Lady’s Body-Part!
Minimum Bid
Price: $1000
Payment: Bitcoin also accepted.Great Bargain Deal; if you BUY today at MBP, you need to pay 0.0102 BTC only!
Guidelines/Protocol
for Installation of Heroine:
· Photo-frame dimensions: Outer (23x18
cm), Inner (15.2x10.8 cm)
· Okra: Organic, fresh, spotless, shiny but not bathed in green chemical colour; Dimension: Length (including stalk)-10 cm, Diametre-1.2 cm (Butt diameter given, Intermediate & Apical diameter will be provided to the buyer!).
Why was okra chosen, you might wonder? True, the vegetable is of East African origin, but India now accounts for 60% of the global produce. That's why!
· Display Height: 165 cm
· How to Eat? Wash it well; then eat
raw, tawa-fried, deep-fried kurkure, or curried with or without tomato.
Kumbh Mela
Cattelan
might have inadvertently hurt the sentiments of some Hindus by trivialising the
banana, a sacred fruit loved by Lord Vishnu. To wash off the sin, he should
visit Kumbh Mela 2025 and take a holy dip in Ganga, purified by decades of
Namami Gange project. Fully air-conditioned tents are available in the mega
tent-city being erected by the government of UP. The artist can easily afford
to book one such tent.
(Yves Klein, Zone de sensibilité picturale immatérielle (1959).
Image Source: Sotheby's)
***
Postscript
Dr. Arati Mund
Deccan Herald Cartoon
