‘Should I or should I not write/react?’ I thought long about it…

To pay attention to it is far too much honour, but still, all the commotion…

Once again it shows how miserably bad and scarce the knowledge about art and art history is. Worse; it shows the mental bankruptcy of an itself eternally repeating lost ‘art elite’.

THE BANANA…

THE FACTS: (for who has been living under a rock):

On the Art Basel Miami Cattelan tapes a banana to a wall. Another artist eats the banana (sold for $ 120,000). And that is then a performance…

THE MEDIA:

I see many pitiful reactions: ‘Look at these hip art lovers enjoying their provocations.’  Vanities of vanities, all is vanity…

But the Dutch ex conservator of the Rijksmuseum, Wim Pijbes, calls it a brilliant piece of art on a primetime program on Dutch TV.

MY TIREDNESS, ASTONISHMENT AND IRRITATION:

Duchamp first made this ‘joke’ in 1918, I wrote more than once about it in my blogs. He exposed a urinal.

This event reminds me of the sad joke: ‘do you know the one about the three farmers who went swimming? They didn’t.’

Level wise of the same category, but a lot duller, because more than a 100 years old. The ‘old and wise’ Pijbes should know this; he studied art history. Time for a refresher course? Thank god he is no longer connected to the Rijksmuseum.

THE MESSAGE OF THE TAPED BANANA:

A random object is exposed and because an artist does it; it is a piece of art. More than once I have pointed out that this is an empty headed action that only leads to total nihilism. The child is thrown away with the water of the tub, as we say in Dutch. This so-called ‘art elite’ has realized that it has become impotent, incapable of expressing an ecstatically interesting object, so it goes for the ultra banal.

Is it a provocation? Not at all, this same sad joke has been made over and over for the last 100 years; it is part of the standard repertoire of an establishment. In 1918 it signalled that once again the arts had moved into an adolescent phase. The establishment had to be shaken.

I think then, ok, let’s tear down a couple of holy houses (another Dutch expression), but after some time, let’s get back on the road again. Let’s pick up the pieces and try to enrich the world. You don’t do this by repeating a 100 years old boring, dull joke.

Why did Pijbes think of it as brilliant? Maybe the interviewer gave the answer: a famous artist did it, so it is brilliant. I am not very convinced by this way of reasoning, fame does not do me much. A piece of art is brilliant, only if the piece itself is brilliant.

It reminds me of a critical remark made about ‘the youngsters of today’. When asked what they want to be when they are grownups the answer often is ‘famous’. Indeed, Cattelan is famous (even though he is that by making third grade dull jokes), so this whole hype shows the zeitgeist. What a sad idiocy. And that is what a so-called authority thinks of as brilliant?

WHY DO I REACT?

For many years I have tried and still try to enrich the world. This banana thing I feel as an insult to the way of communicating through the arts. Not something to normally pay attention to, but with all the commotion, I had to write. Art can be brilliant too…

Is this reaction hard to imagine for others? I often take an event like this one and place it in another discipline. Imagine that a colleague shows up with a dull joke like that over and over…

This ‘art elite’, like Narcissus, admires itself in a pool of 100 years stinking stagnant water; it has drowned in the love for itself. It is spiritual environmental pollution. And that in times like these…

Have a pleasant day and I apologize for my poor English.

P.S.: for the Dutch text, click here.