By: John Carlson—
For years I have despaired of ever achieving my original career goal of becoming a fabulously wealthy professional artist who drinks wine and sleeps all day, but recent developments have renewed my sense of hope.
I owe it all to the banana that was duct-taped to a wall. You know, the one that was splashed all over Facebook and television a few weeks ago.
On second thought, no. I owe it all to the artist who thought of duct taping a banana to a wall. In doing so, he made a profound aesthetic statement linking the spirit of human innovation (wall) and humanity’s quest for meaning (duct tape) with the untamed magnificence of nature (a banana). Then he sold this masterpiece for $120,000. That’s why I am currently working on a masterpiece of my own, tentatively titled “Two Bananas Duct-Taped to a Wall,” which if my calculations based on the original work are correct, should fetch me $240,000.
Besides that artist, though, I also owe my renewed shot at artistic fame and fortune to this old adage: “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
True, it seems like a long shot that some art collector with $120,000 to blow was lying in bed one night, pining away and thinking, “I’d give anything (sigh) to find a piece incorporating a wall, some tape and a banana.” Then whammo! There it is!
That’s why I suspect whoever paid 120,000 clams for that original duct-taped banana, then later peeled and ate it, was a generous patron of the arts participating in some kind of fund-raising publicity stunt. But I could be wrong. God knows these are very weird and wacky days when our judgment – or serious lack thereof – in all facets of life has never been more suspect.
Besides, as already noted, great art means different things to different people.
For example, my wife Nancy and her sisters saw Da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” during a pilgrimage to Paris last year, and were floored by her beguiling air of calm, contemplative loveliness. But what if my lowlife Fickle Peach buddies and I had made that trip instead? We’d have thought Mona would be hotter if Leonardo made her look more like J.Lo posing for the cover of a 16th-century Victoria’s Secret catalog. See? Different strokes for different folks.
The same principle is why if you, or anybody else out there, have a funny looking painting around the house signed by some guy named Jackson Pollock that you don’t want anymore, Nancy and I will do you a favor and take it off your hands for as much as a hundred dollars.
But back to “Banana Duct-Taped to a Wall. ” Along with the excitement it has spurred on the national arts scene, it has provided a thought-provoking reminder to millions of American art aficionados of the vital artistic role played by fruit and vegetables.
That’s what it reminded me of, anyway.
I knew this once, but had forgotten it. Then, while researching “weird art” on Google for this scholarly treatise, I encountered the stirring image of a whale that had been sculpted from half a cucumber.
It was amazing! This looked exactly like a breaching whale, if breaching whales were green, seedy and six inches long. It was even more amazing considering its bottom half had probably ended up as lunch in the artist’s Chicken Cucumber Wrap. What’s more, further intense Google research brought to light other incredible if unlikely works of modern art. They included a re-creation of Edvard Munch’s legendary painting “The Scream,” except done with sushi. Or maybe it was lunchmeat. I forget. There was also an incredibly realistic sculpture of a cow’s brain made, conveniently, from the brain of a cow. One could only stand humbled by this sculptor’s skill, plus how he managed to make it without tossing his cookies.
The lesson, then, is anything can be great art.
That’s the notion promulgated by certain segments of art’s intelligentsia, it seems. It gets pretty ridiculous, though. Frankly, it wouldn’t surprise me if somewhere out there, a hopeful conceptual artist of the modern school, looking to break new creative ground, is at this very moment pondering the most meaningful way to glue dried dog waste to a canvass. Maybe he even dreams of the day when his name will go down in art history alongside Renoir, Van Gogh and Picasso, with this celebrated piece representing the height of his “Poop Period.”
But much as I appreciate the fact “Banana Duct-Taped to a Wall” lowered the art bar enough to rekindle my own artistic ambition, you can’t go too ape over it.
Better to think of the artists, successful or otherwise, who pursued, pursue and will pursue their passion to the best of their ability simply for creation’s sake. As for a true success story, I’ll take that little old lady named Grandma Moses. A live-in housekeeper through her rural working life, she took up her brush at an age when her joints undoubtedly carried the pain of a lifetime’s labor. What resulted were the charming, colorful, beautiful works of primitive art that, against all odds, made her a world-famous painter before her death at age 101.
This time of year, think how right her 1946 work “Out For Christmas Trees” would look on a wall.
That’s not to say bananas weren’t important to Grandma Moses’s oeuvre, though. I’d bet anything she also made one heck of a banana cream pie.
John’s weekly columns are sponsored by Beasley & Gilkison, Muncie’s trusted attorneys for over 120 years.
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A former longtime feature writer and columnist for The Star Press in Muncie, Indiana, John Carlson is a storyteller with an unflagging appreciation for the wonderful people of East Central Indiana and the tales of their lives, be they funny, poignant, inspirational or all three. John’s columns appear on Muncie Journal every Friday.
