News accounts tend to consider $6.24 million a lot. "A whopping $6.24 million" The Washington Post gushed.
"Whopping" — there's an adjective you just don't see much anymore.
What does "whopping" even mean? "Very large." Is it? Elon Musk is worth more than $300 billion, so you have to wonder if $6.24 million is really very much money at all — not to you or me, of course, but to guys like Justin Sun, the purchaser of the duct-taped banana. Sun is a Chinese entrepreneur who created Tron, a cryptocurrency. A billion dollars worth of Tron traded Wednesday, with each unit valued at almost 20 cents. By Saturday, it was at 22 cents, a 10 percent rise, so my guess is that he'll made his money back many times over, with publicity increasing the value of his cryptocurrency, which has already appreciated more than 100 percent this year. Money coined out of the air of technology and inflated with the wind of ballyhoo.
What does "whopping" even mean? "Very large." Is it? Elon Musk is worth more than $300 billion, so you have to wonder if $6.24 million is really very much money at all — not to you or me, of course, but to guys like Justin Sun, the purchaser of the duct-taped banana. Sun is a Chinese entrepreneur who created Tron, a cryptocurrency. A billion dollars worth of Tron traded Wednesday, with each unit valued at almost 20 cents. By Saturday, it was at 22 cents, a 10 percent rise, so my guess is that he'll made his money back many times over, with publicity increasing the value of his cryptocurrency, which has already appreciated more than 100 percent this year. Money coined out of the air of technology and inflated with the wind of ballyhoo.
That part tends to get left off of the story. It's also worth noting that he bought not an actual banana, purchased for 35 cents that day from a New York street vendor and duct taped to the wall. But the idea. The artwork comes with 14 pages of instructions and — in a nice touch — a roll of duct tape. Me, I'd build a school.
My Oxford English Dictionary considers "whopping" colloq. or vulgar and defines it as "abnormally large or great" as well as "monstrously false." That sounds about right.
Reminds of an episode of "Adam Ruins Everything" where he explains how the fine art scene is basically a scam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dw5kme5Q_Yo
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of how vulgar multi-billionaires are. When Musk was considering buying Twitter some aid organization asked him for support. He asked how much would it take to end world hunger. They said 6 Billion. He ended up buying Twitter for 40 Billion instead. He's now worth over 300B. Ending world hunger wouldn't even register as a rounding error on his net worth, but he won't do it. It must be some type of insanity.
a side benefit? it's now worth a fraction of what he paid for it
DeleteThe guy could have just taken that money down to the nearest homeless shelter and set fire to it in front of a bunch of needy people. He could call it "performance art." No instructions required.
ReplyDeleteIf Maurizio Cattelan actually got the $5.2 million, he's a better scam artist that the fat orange traitor going back to the White House that will destroy this country!
ReplyDeleteAt least Cattelan just fooled the entire pompous art world & all the fools that bid on it!
The rest of us are just goggle eyed at the stupidity of the thing.
Like Yoko Ono used to fool people with the so called avant garde art.
DeleteGoogle-ized!
DeleteAn exercise on the point of endlessly accumulating wealth.The point is the same as the reason a dog lick his er, stuff. Because he can.
ReplyDeleteI tend to look down my nose at the fools who buy crypto currency and fake art, but of course, the stuff that rolls off the U.S. Treasury's printing presses is also subject to the iron rule making it worth "whatever someone is willing to pay for it." Gold standard or no standard, every currency fluctuates, sometimes to the extent that you need a shopping bag of it to buy a loaf of bread. That's why some of us would prefer that people who know what they're doing run the joint. But apparently a majority of Americans prefer otherwise.
ReplyDeletejohn
Bought Bitcoin when it was a novelty $550. Didn't know how to do it but my young son showed me how it got up to $3,000 and I said oh my God. I wish I'd have bought two. I sold it and then my son started buying. He bought at $15,000 and said I should too. I'm like you got to be out of your mind so he insisted I bought one. I think it was $18,000. It went up to 35 and I sold it and it went back down so I bought another one. I'm not sure what the price was $2021,000 something like that he had two of them at this point
DeleteI bought two more at 35. Sold them at 90. All of them have none. Now it'll go back down. I'll probably buy them again, but somewhere along the line made like $270,000. If you think the people that buy bitcoins are fools well, I'm a fool
Not rich but better off than if I didn't get in. Didn't buy any bananas taped at a wall
The Rich are different from me
ReplyDeleteAnybody know what Maurizio is going to do with the proceeds? Buy another banana?
ReplyDeleteI think he'll be able to buy a few tons of bananas! Enough to last a lifetime.
DeleteIs the wall included with the banana and the duct tape? Or do you have to supply your own?
ReplyDeleteThere's so much in this world I don't understand. Didn't that banana get eaten by a hungry museum staffer in S Korea a few years back? What's the replacement protocol for owning such an art installation? On what schedule must you replace the banana, and who is financially responsible for it? Is it recommended to hang it on a wall with sun or shade? Is it insurable? Would you be protected if Del Monte ever sued for misappropriation of property or trademark infringement? How do you handle the issue of fruit flies in your living room? Could an interior designer be commissioned to provide advice on where to discreetly place a bowl of cider vinegar and dish soap? How would you deal with the odor? Install Fans? Plug in Glade air freshener? These sorts of questions prevent me from bidding on such pieces of avant garde art work.
ReplyDeleteWrite the word TRUMP across the tape, with a red Sharpie, and a whole bunch (sorry) of benighted folks will be lining up and paying ten grand for a poster. Barnum greatly underestimated the American sheeple...in today's sick world, there's now a sucker born every SECOND. And they're called consumers.
ReplyDeleteJust for the record (ouch!), Andy Warhol did the banana thing first...but without the duct tape...in 1967. You can still go online and find a copy of "The Velvet Underground and Nico"...considered to be one of the most influential rock and pop albums of all time...for a mere thirty or forty bucks. Leave the banana sticker on the front cover. Removing it reveals the pink banana underneath...and reduces the value of the LP considerably
Contemporary art can be challenging-that's what one of our staff-an artist herself-told me to say when a new piece of art-a sculpture-was donated, approved by the Library board. I've used that phrase a number of times in my years as a library director. Certainly true of the banana piece!
ReplyDeleteMaurizio Cattelan is known to be both humorous and satirical. The banana piece follows a century-old tradition of Dadaism that explores the conceptual boundaries of art rather than the traditional aesthetics of beauty, narrative and visionary expression. To understand better, take a look at Marcel Duchamp. The duct-taped banana has done exactly what it intended: set the art world ablaze with questions about what art itself is.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I am of the old camp that still relishes such things as paintings, I am intrigued by the impact NFTs (non-fungilbe tokens), the digital world, and now AI (artificial intelligence) are having on how art will be collected in the future. For $6.24 million, I might be willing to change my mind.
thank you T. I appreciate you
DeleteNot everyone can calmly accept the likes of Yoko , Duchamp or Cattelan.
but then as you say the banana has done exactly what it intended and some people lose their motherfucking minds. its all so entertaining
I relish art of all types and peoples reactions. especially a fan of public sculpture especially the dubuffet, and the miro here in chicago