Dave Datuna eats Maurizo Cattelan’s lunch
Maurizio Cattelan - whose duct-taped banana has become the latest virulent meme - was one-upped at Art Basel Miami by hungry artist David Datuna, who calmly pulled the banana off the wall and ate it.
According to Gallerie Perrotin, who represents Cattelan, the banana lampoons "popular culture and offers a wry commentary on society, power, and authority".
Cattelan's banana is just the latest iteration of a long-running joke that goes back at least as far Michangelo, who painted the people he had to deal with while working on the Sistine Chapel as characters in the frescos he painted there.
Comedian
Marcel DuChamp's 1917 Fountain (a urinal) was aimed squarely at the Society of Independent Artists, which had set up an exhibition without a jury that would accept all submissions (and from which Fountain was rejected). DuChamp's 'readymades' were products.
Jean Tinguely's 1960 performance Homage to New York was a machine that self-destructed. With performance art there is nothing to buy except perhaps a ticket. Most of the remains of Homage to New York were thrown away, with a few small pieces kept as mementos.
Part performance and part product, Piero Manzoni created Artist's Shit in 1961 by canning his own (fortunately we have been spared the performance part). Merda d'artista last sold at auction for £182,500.
Wim Delvoye took the concept to another level with Cloaca, a series of machines that transformed food into feces and then vacuum-packaged it - a striking metaphor for art, consumerism, life, and just about everything, especially if you subscribe to Sturgeon's Law*. Delvoy's Cloaca is part performance - the machines digest food in front of the audience - and part product, as shrink-wrapped poop is available for purchase.
Finally we get to Banksy, whose painting Girl with Balloon partially self-destructed at auction. Banksy is without doubt the most socially and culturally relevant artist alive today. The remote-controlled destruction of an artwork that had just sold for £1 million was a deliberate act of class warfare - which with exquisite irony made the work even more valuable.
So yes - Cattelan's banana (title: Comedian) is a joke. But on who?
Certainly not on Perrotin, the high-end French art gallery that is basking in the global publicity. It is most certainly a joke on the buyers - if indeed there really are any. Perrotin's claim that three were sold at $120,000 to $150,000 each remains just that - a claim. Like many such claims (such as some of the red dots posted at art fairs) they should be taken with some large grains of salt.
For those attending the fairs it is - like almost all "culture" - just more entertainment. Few are educated enough to view this in historical perspective or even get past the obvious one-liners. Most are busier looking at each other ("Miami is more fun if you speak Spanish. And are very rich. And skinny too.") than they are at art. In this respect Cattelan's banana is well-placed, a spectacle (neither product nor performance) that adds to the experience of Art Basel ("I was there when ..."). This leads us to art fairs as the lowest level of commercialism, venues profiting on galleries, artists, advertising, and sponsorships without regard for the quality product or concern for the profitability of those providing the draw. This is the only relevant interpretation of Comedian.
In the end the joke is on those of us struggling to survive by navigating the cesspool of art dealers who make used car salesmen look like Mother Teresa and art fairs that strive to be the Amazon of Art with a business model based on Uber. We are the butt of the joke.
Thus kudos to David Datuna, who in a brilliant performance accelerated the transition of Cattelan's banana into pure shit, completing the metaphor and stealing the show.
Performance art is an act, an event encapsulated in a moment of time. It can only be experienced - it cannot be owned. You can buy the photograph of the event, the catalog and the book, and even a copy of the film made about it, but you cannot buy the experience.
* Sturgeon's Law: "90% of everything is crap"