IN DEFENSE OF BANANAS

“With a Historic Splash, David Hockney Becomes the World’s Priciest Living Artist”…$358 million for one painting : 2018

“Leonardo da Vinci Painting Sells for $450 million” (2017)

Two art auction headlines. 
They came and went and nobody batted an eye. 
People assumed that a da Vinci is worth $450 million because after all, he’s dead, and he’s in all the art history books. 
The David Hockney thing raised a few eyebrows because, after all,  he’s still alive.  

Think about those amounts of money. Nearly half a billion dollars — sales to individuals — not museums, not governments. In a world where individuals have billions of dollars to spend on ANY object, is monetary value meaningless?

 “It’s all hokum, sleight of hand, gas and mirrors!” That was Marcel Duchamp (1917) when he entered a urinal as art object at the Society of Independent Artists.  He justified his action with “it is art because I am an artist and I say it is” — the audacity of his “brutal sneer.” 

Almost everybody knows about the urinal but what was Duchamp trying to tell us? I believe it is that art is everything no matter what title you give it — painting, sculpture, egg turner, shovel. If we are to live our lives to the fullest, then we must look at everything we see and touch as “art.”

Well! That gets to be pretty exhausting, don’t you think? Much easier to establish categories. So shovels go into “house goods”. Buy those at the hardware store. Art belongs in museums…or in hands of very wealthy people. And that, dear readers, is totally against Duchamp’s lesson. 

Artists regularly remind us of Duchamp’s philosophy because we can’t seem to get it:  art permeates everything and belongs to everyone. Enter the banana taped to a wall (2019). Title: The Comedian. Artist: Maurizio Cattelan, the same conceptual artist who created the 18 carat gold toilet (Title: America). Mr. Cattelan is not very subtle in his “brutal sneers.”  

For a few minutes last week, everybody was talking about the $120,000 banana. Question: who is the comedian of the title? the artist? the art bureaucracy that willingly exhibited the piece in a major international show? the buyer? Or billionaires (and by extension, all of us) chasing validation and prestige through accumulation of things? 

Art isn’t alone in this skewed value system. In what universe is a baseball player’s employment worth $324 million (9 year contract?) How can anybody even talk about a $24,000 hair cut? Or a $300 million car collection?  How about a 27 story apartment for $1 billion (a part time residence)?  Or a $1.5 Million i phone? (Each of these is actual fact verified by a ten second Google search.)

We are immune to such outrageous extravagance. But tape a banana to a wall, and it’s a new kind of crazy. 

Or it's really, really funny.

CONFESSIONS OF A HOLIDAY SHOPPER

My "Holiday Blouse"

I just ordered this expensive blouse from an English catalog. It’s being delivered in 12 hours.  That’s the power of internet shopping. I can’t drive from my house to the nearest shopping mall, park, walk inside, find something, purchase, bring home, try on, reverse all…in less than double the time.  Shipping from England: $15 — a bargain.

Not to say this blouse has staying power. Already I'm thinking “big flowers?” I’m old — and “chubby” — and 5’2”(down from 5'3). Then there’s the issue of European sizing. I either ordered a size big enough to serve as Tyvek on the garage or one that will fit my terrier, Lucy. I filled out the “size chart” questionnaire: Height: 5’6,” Weight: 122 lbs., Age: 43. Then I sized up a notch and figured “close enough.”

Now I’m on the hunt for velvet pants. In my dream, I will be transformed into the twin of this model — not outrageously glamorous, not movie star beautiful. This lady looks more like a nurse practitioner or maybe a cellist. I want to be her.

My friend asked me “why velvet pants?” I said “for holiday parties.” “Exactly how many holiday parties are you going to?” That’s when I confronted the awful truth: I’m not going to any holiday parties. 

What am I thinking? I just went through a cleanse. I just wrote about the weight of too much — and I believe every word! But I suffer from the curse of being a middle class American woman, brain washed into thinking I can be younger, prettier, thinner, smarter if I only have the right outfit. Like that song about Laredo: “if you have an outfit you can be a cowboy too.” With the right velvet pants, maybe I can play the cello…or dance a wicked tango…or understand Italian…

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Political Conservatives are on the march again: the multi-trillion dollar federal deficit needs trimming, so by all means, cut the few pennies thrown at the National Endowment for the Arts. Easy target! Read Eve L. Ewing, a sociologist at the University of Chicago, writing for the New York Times. She builds a persuasive case:  Art becomes a political target because it creates pathways to subversion, and incites political understanding and solidarity among coalition builders.  If that’s not enough reason to “throw those artists and performers and writers in the klink,” this one is: ART TEACHES THAT ALL LIVES HAVE VALUE. 

Happy December, everybody.