Global Courant 2023-05-01 20:57:52
He said he was “hungry.” It is the second time the fruit has been eaten, which sold for $120,000 at a US fair in 2019.
Artistic expression, for many, is a way of denouncing and stirring up consciences. For others, it is a way of transmitting emotions or experiences. Then there’s Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan who, with touches of provocation and a sense of humor, sold his latest artwork, a banana taped to a wall, for $120,000. Now, and for the second time in its history, this work was devoured during an exhibition at the Leeum Museum of Art in Seoul.
This time it happened in Seoul. As highlighted by the BBC and posted by the Korean channel KBS on Twitter, a young student who was watching the work tore off the fruit, took his time eating the work, and then left the shell back in its place.
The young man’s name is Noh Huyn-soo and he is an art student from South Korea. After eating the work — called “Comedian”, part of Cattelan’s “WE” exhibition — he claimed to have done so because he was “hungry” after skipping breakfast.
The Korean student peels off the banana, eats it, and glues the peel back on.
The artwork consisted of a ripe banana taped to a wall at the Leeum Museum of Art in Seoul.
The museum later placed a new banana in the same spot, local media reported. In addition, reports indicate that the banana is replaced every two or three days. The Leeum Museum of Art said it will not seek damages against the student.
In videos posted online, cries of “excuse me” can be heard as Mr. Noh removes the banana from the wall. He doesn’t respond and begins to eat as the room goes silent.
The original banana of the work had to be replaced by another banana.
Noh later told local media that he saw Cattelan’s work as a rebellion against a certain authority. “Damaging a piece of art could also be seen as a piece of art, I thought it would be interesting… Isn’t it stuck there to eat it?” When told about the incident, Mr Cattelan said: “No problem.”
This is not the first time a visitor has eaten bananas used for the work of artist Cattelan.
The original work of the Italian artist.
In 2019, performance artist David Datuna pulled the banana off the wall after the artwork sold for $120,000 at Art Basel in Miami.
David Datuna took out the banana and ate it. It was in 2019.
Copyright
The work is also embroiled in a copyright battle. In 2022, Joe Morford, an artist from Glendale, California, charged that Cattelan had plagiarized his own 2000 work titled “Banana & Orange,” which shows the titular fruits taped to green backgrounds painted on a wall.
According to court documents, Morford, who is representing himself, registered the artwork with the US Copyright Office and posted it on his website and on his Facebook and YouTube accounts long before Cattelan created “They comedian.”
The installation, at Art Basel in Miami in 2019.
Cattelan’s lawyers argued that Morford “has no valid copyright” to elements of the artwork: the banana and the duct tape attached to the wall.
Another of Cattelan’s viral works was an 18-karat solid gold plating “titled” America, valued at about $6 million. It was first installed at the Guggenheim in New York in 2016 and could be used by visitors.
Later in 2019, it was stolen from Winston Churchill’s birth home at Bleinheim Palace in England, where it was being displayed. It has never been found.
