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One banana: $2,500

OLIVER MOORE

From Thursday's Globe and Mail

Latest comment posted at 11:06 PM EDT 02/07/08

Michael Fernandes's installation piece in Halifax is one expensive piece of fruit. As the artist explains, it's the process, not the banana, that is important ...Read the full article

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  1. varun xm from toronto, Canada writes: this just made my day :-)
    And the Patrick Swayze collective Rocks.
  2. Mikey Gault from Licking Angelina Jolie's Boots, Canada writes: This is brilliant and makes me proud to be a Canadian. I'm happy to see this guy plans a similar exhibit at the China Olympics; if done, the world will see how creative us Canadians are! Whats even more exciting is the possible development of this concept: to vegetables, to meat, to grains.

    You know, if this photos are arranged in order and put in a book, it could be like a flip book: you flip quickly through the pages and a yellow banana gradually turns green and disappears! As we all know, flip books are at the highest end of art.
  3. boris moris from vancouver, Canada writes: This piece is a clever and no so subtle shot...not at other artists...but at art dealers and the 'more money than taste/brains' crowd.

    Canada's art 'scene' has a huge surplus in fatuous, corpulent snobs who are making a pretty good case (just by their existence) for a return to eugenics.
  4. Stude Ham from Outremont, Canada writes:
    this is proof positive that it is not the commodity market speculators, nor ethanol, nor scarcities, that have driven up the prices of foods. it is the artists... or do bananas really sell for 2500$ each...

    here's hoping my local grocery supplier hasn't heard of the going price of 2500$ per b'na. because he's still selling them by the kilo for less than one dollar.

    btw... is the Patrick Swaize Cooperative theme song
    YES WE HAVE NO BANANAS... WE HAVE NO BANANAS TODAY!!!

    ?
  5. Moe Unting from Calgary, Canada writes: Hmmm...The Patrick Swayze Collective...I wonder if they have his train collection. Dude looks like a lady!

    As long as taxpayers money has nothing to do with these efforts, then play on!
  6. R. M. from Regina, Canada writes: Sigh...we are absolutely bananas! Why do we fund these things again???????
  7. Brianna Hersey from Montreal, Canada writes: This is fabulous.

    I believe those art students are distraught because they have not yet entered the business art world where everything and everyone is a banana.
  8. Good Times my Ladies. from Toronto, Canada writes: This is a load of c ra p ... or is it simply the effects of inflation?
  9. R Miller from Halifax, Canada writes: One Banana - $2,500

    One Sean Avery - $ 16 million dollars...

    What's the difference really ?
  10. Terry Terry from Brantford, Canada writes: AWESOME! I just bought six, at forty-nine cent a pound.
  11. David Mordecai from Toronto, Canada writes: Others have done it in the past -

    http://www.guggenheim.org/artscurriculum/lessons/sfgonzaleztorres.php
  12. George BrownIII from Christmas Island writes: Going bananas, 49 cent per pound. My first set of suspects would have been the man with the yellow hat and curious George.

    Hosein you living proof of having gone bananas I dont want to offend you as a moslim that you should take up alcohol but other than that get on valium man the sooner the better and return to your mama for some nice and cozy breast feeding.
  13. D JL from Canada writes: Your willing to pay 2500 for a plan green/yellow banana. I've go two in my kitchen riht now, hurry, they won't last, that are yellow with black markings. In fact, if I look closely, the black markings look like something. I just can't figure it out. Hurry, the proce will only go up (more black than yellow)...

    geezzzee... this is news or Art?
  14. Alexander Slimnich from Canada writes: A fool and his money are soon parted.
    What complete, utter garbage.

    Or maybe I.. just don't get 'art'.
  15. Plain Jane from Canada writes: In Halifax's local Metro paper, they sagely note that the gallery is near NSCAD and that many local stores sell apples, brilliantly presenting a possible solution to the great 'Patrick Swayze Collective' mystery. I'm surprised that the Globe dropped the ball on this one.
  16. Uri Heuer from Tor'Couver, Canada writes: We are all a part of the artwork in this case. We affect it through our praise/criticism. In fact, I declare that this part of the conversation is an installation art piece of it's own. So there. Give me money now.
  17. Paul Smith from Canada writes: R. M. from Regina, Canada writes: Sigh...we are absolutely bananas! Why do we fund these things again???????

    Actually we don't. If you read the bloody article you wouldn't make yourself look so ignorant.
    The artist is staging the exhibition WITHOUT public funding! Although, how the artist can fork out the money for a new banana every day and the bus fare down to the gallery I'll never know. Probably independently wealthy.
    Personally I think the artist is taking the piss, the problem is art galleries don't know anything about art anymore.
  18. Paul Smith from Stratford, Canada writes: 'There's only ONE thing worse than being talked about! And that is NOT being talked about. '

    ....I think it was Oscar who said that.
  19. Uri Heuer from Tor'Couver, Canada writes: Paul Smith: It is not publicly funded work. That is obvious. But the artist did set an original price for the work, and in the end the price either directly or indirectly is a part of the piece. This is the distinct nature of this sort of work. It incorporates the observer regardless of whether they are willing or aware of it.
    Maybe the issue is that people, not galleries, don't know 'what art is anymore'. Maybe the ignorant ones are us, the majority, more-so, the jaded critics who unwillingly take part in the installation! The gallery itself made it's own statement by pricing the work to sell, do they really need the cash? They are fostering the message of the work by making it a more reasonable investment. This all factors into the actual work of art.
    It is intended to open one's mind to a different perspective and It must defy your standards before it means something! Just enjoy the statement it makes and keep an open mind!
  20. Uri Heuer from Tor'Couver, Canada writes: Oh, sorry Paul, I somehow didn't see who you addressed that too. I'm an idiot, I know.
  21. chicken grambo from Toronto, Canada writes: Hey art is what it is. A case in point. The following is in the main atrium at the Metro museum of modern art in New York. I actually like it!

    http://youtube.com/watch?v=q4gzMr_cEW0
  22. Frank Lee My Dears I Don't Give A Damn from Trawana, Canada writes:
    ORANGE you all happy that Canada is in the forefruit (sic) of the 'art scene'?
  23. C P from Canada writes: oh fun! I like this story. I think art should be just as often fun as it is seriously thought-provoking.
  24. Rusty Waters from Canada writes: Don Cherry, Grapes, would be an abstract piece.
  25. diana diana from Toronto, Canada writes: It is almost as pathetic as the kitchen sink sitting on the wall at the Art Gallery of Ontario or the pieces of cut up rug sitting at the National Art Gallery, pathetic and humiliating.
  26. R Miller from Halifax, Canada writes: Rusty Waters from Canada:

    I like that one...

    Yes, we all have to fund the overpriced Grapes that are sitting on our television screens in our homes through our tax dollars....

    So, I have no real issues with this overpriced banana that is sitting in a private gallery's window...

    Cheers.
  27. Paul C from Canada writes: and you people call Toronto pretentious.

    'Art is all over' - Baxter
  28. NotASpoiledAthelete - from Canada writes: The banana isn't really a banana - it's a representation of the epic struggle between man and wildlife. It is the age-old story of movement between flowing life-forces that beckon us to look - gape, if you will - at the wonder of the ageing banana.

    This banana may have been grown in soil created with the sediment of stone from the Byzantine empire! This banana may have come from a tree once gazed upon by Pizzaro!

    In fact, this banana represents everything we, as a human race, strive to achieve yet miss horribly in our daily lives - fame.

    Now onto our next lesson..How to defend yourself against a man armed with a banana
  29. J M from Canada writes: love it.
    the fact that this banana 'process' has created so many questions and generated so much discussion has validated it as art.

    if it makes you wonder, that makes it art.
  30. NotASpoiledAthelete - from Canada writes: J M - the other day, as I was riding the subway home, someone decided to pass gas in the very crowded subway train.

    The noxious fumes led me to wonder who the heck would be so disgusting as to do that - and then bask in the anonymity of the act.

    Based on your logic - I guess what I was smelling was art (??)
    Foul, funky - ignorant art.

    Hmmm..after reading your comment though..I think I smell something again..

    Congratulations - you're an artist! LOL
  31. J M from Canada writes: nope, based on YOUR logic, you smelled art.
    i guess i can't relate. sorry. an anonymous fart on the subway seems rather commonplace, and has not ever instilled a sense of wonderment in me. but with your refined sense of wonder, your life must be filled with art, and who would complain about that...
  32. NotASpoiledAthelete - from Canada writes: J M - so please teach..what definition of 'wonder' are you using?
    Is it like 'Wonderbread'? Or 'Wonder Woman'?

    But you're right - an anonymous fart definitely cannot compete with an anonymous banana.

    My God - have I wasted my life wondering about the wrong things? Has this banana been sent from the heavens above just for me? To show me how my life - with this banana, a new subtle definition of the word 'wonder' could breath new life into my workaday world?

    So tell me J M - when did you open your gallery? I really must see it.
    Or wait - maybe there is no gallery (insert mysterious music)..
    Maybe the gallery is meant to be in your own mind - so when you give people an address that doesn't exist, and they pay $20 for parking - only then can they realize that your gallery is a state of mind. Brilliant. Just brilliant (insert two-fingered applause)
  33. Uri Heuer from Tor'Couver, Canada writes: If you take the F'n art out of fart, you are left with nothing!
  34. Gogh Forit from Canada writes: The artist says the process is the important part. He's referring to the process that got him $2500 for a banana.
  35. Gogh Forit from Canada writes: If by way of internet discussion, that discussion validates this banana as 'art', then if someone were to cut up the banana into pieces and called it scrap, it then too, would qualify as art.
  36. Yourname 2 from Canada writes: I wept!
  37. Rain Couver from Canada writes: isn't Patrick Swayze best friends with Mel Gibson? Food for thought.
  38. M. Mark from Victoria, Canada writes: I hope the National Gallery bids $1.5 million for it and places it next to the $1.5 million red stripe they bought a number of years ago.
  39. Sue Hickey from Grand Falls-Windsor, Canada writes: Yeah, I was just going to say - reminds me of the National Gallery's "Voice of Fire" which I saw. I was hoping that it would be an abstract piece that would have an impact on me....there some that are challenging and beautiful in their simplicity. When I saw Voice of Fire, I saw - a very nice blue stripe - a very nice red stripe - and a very nice blue stripe. That's it. It was not only crappy, but AMERICAN crappy. The Gallery couldn't even see fit to spend its money on a Canadian abstract artist. Too bad Barnett Newman is dead because I would send him hate mail. At least banana boy is not spending my taxpayers dollars.
    If you want a different way of experiencing art, check out Janet Cardiff's sound installation "Forty Part Motet" ( I think it's a permanent installation at the Gallery). She took forty speakers, one for each voice part in Thomas Tallis's astonishing piece "Spem In Alium" and placed them in a way so that you are in the music itself, becoming part of the installation as you walk through the forest of speakers. Thomas himself would have been proud. That, my friends, is art, not a lone banana or a silly excuse for a picture by Barnett Newman. Good thing he's dead or else I would make nasty phone calls!
  40. The Patrick Swayze Collective from Halifax, Canada writes: MANIFESTO OF THE PARTICK SWAYZE COLLECTIVE
    We, The Patrick Swayze Collective exist. We definitely exist.
    These words shall ring out in the hearts of our followers for years to come. In every city of the globe our children and brethren exist for that sole mighty purpose: To exist.
    Our existence among the hearts and minds of many has resulted in a massive existence of existential proportions.
    But, now knowing our goal, "Who are The Patrick Swayze Collective?" you may ask. Well, the answer is as simple as its implications are complex. We perform alterations of intellectual property. We are vindicators. We are liberators. We are teen heartthrobs. Nous sommes des révolutionnaires!
    We assumed we would exist only momentarily, we formed on a whim, but others refused to accept our fleeting existence. We were forced once more to coalesce out of the mist to form a unmoving, permanent fixture on this ephemeral plane.
    We are Ozymandias, King of Kings. Look upon our works, ye mighty and despair.
  41. Jim Q from Halifax, Canada writes: The result of an undereducated society. Where artists stop making art and start selling philosophy is where you will find people with little understanding of either. These sorts of stunts usually rely on shallow, impressionistic and melodramatic reflections on life, the universe and everything. Art should provoke and inspire through visual effect. Philosophy does the same by rhetoric, including the use of props. I wouldn't mind this blurring of the line between the two, except that it detracts from both philosophy and art, by presenting shallow thought with truly bland visual effect.

    We need to start differentiating between art, which creates a visual impact by virtue of its own existence, and props for creative rhetoric. Sorry, bud. You're no Plato and Picasso's not terribly impressed, either.
  42. gordon foster from Canada writes: Staged/described/documented Conceptual art was big in the late sixties and early seventies. I'm glad to see it making a resurgence.
  43. Nikolai Gauer from Halifax, Canada writes: To Micahel
  44. Nikolai Gauer from Halifax, Canada writes: Correction: To Michael.
  45. matt e from Canada writes: Art is what ever people declare it to be. Duchamp and later people like Allen Kaprow or Sophie Calle established this decades ago and art history has validated it. Whether its good or bad is subjective and not really for any individual on this board to determine rather only whether you like it or not. I thought it was a funny gesture and as a jab at the rediculousness of the free market its successful.

    Else where in the paper, a barrel of crude oil is now $146. based largely on the projections of speculators and the free market. Concepts of "value" are as subjective as what is or is not good art.
  46. Nassar Ben Houdja from Canada writes: There's on born every minute.
  47. Anne P from Canada writes: Very odd when fruit is considered to be art.
  48. martha stewart from Canada writes: A con artist.

    And a fool who bought it.

    There really is no deeper meaning to this than that.

    A chimp could have done it, and that would have been more authentic.
  49. R Miller from Halifax, Canada writes: martha stewart from Canada:

    A chimp couldn't have done it...

    A chimp would have eaten it...
  50. Frank Lee My Dears I Don't Give A Damn from BananaTrawana, Canada writes:
    To otASpoiledAthelete - from Canada. Love your Art Speak. You must be an art critic, no? ; }
  51. robert quinn from Japan writes: Said it before, but Joyce's line that art should enchant the heart seems germane here. The sight of a banana at rest may trigger some vestigial primate joy the artist is cleverly exploiting. Then again, sometimes a banana is just a banana.
  52. Rusty Waters from Canada writes: I think the bannana is shaped like a piece of a circle. If you take seven of them and fit them together they will form a circle. Seven bannanas represent the seven continents and what the artist is really saying is that all the people on the seven continents of the earth must come together to learn geomentry so that they can build perfect bicycle wheels for bikes which will save the planet from pollution and global warming. On second thought it looks like a penis starting to go flacid which symbolizes the public doesn't have the courage and stamina to stand up to the oil companies that are gouging them. Maybe it just means root beer doesn't run off a duck's back. When my wife brings banannas home from the store I take a bananna and cut it in seven pieces place them on top of ice in a bowl. I eat one piece at a time imagining I've conguered a continent. After I have eaten the seven pieces and conquered the seven continents my bananna straigthens out and I rush up to the bedroom with my wife. Freud was right that everything man does is based on sex. It's the Alfa males that are raping the earth of its resources to become filthy rich so they can have sexual relationships with beautifull women.
  53. D G from Canada writes: The bottom of my refridgerator must be worth millions! Bidding starts at $500,000.
  54. Anger Equals Danger from Canada writes: Rusty Waters from Canada writes: I think the bannana is shaped like a piece of a circle. . . .

    * * * *

    bahahahahahahahahahanananananananaaaaaaaaaaaa!
  55. C A from Canada writes: Rusty Waters from Canada

    hahahahaahahahahaahaha... now that is art.. wait, not it isnt.. but maybe it is? shrugs... sure was amusing though! thanks ;)
  56. Rusty Waters from Canada writes: Everyone should just get outdoors in the summer and enjoy nature.
    You can enjoy the scenes that move you. I'm going out on the patio. The sun is hot and the beer is cold and I'm going to listen to some gold rock and and blues music. Get away from your computer.
  57. guy tozer from Saskatoon, Canada writes: A fool and his money are soon parted!!

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