A banana duct taped to a wall at an art gallery and declared "Art" $120,000.
Man eats said banana and declares "Art Performance" Priceless!

https://nypost.com/2019/12/07/the-120k-bana...ormance-artist/

That's the thing with "Modern Art", it doesn't have to be good. Just has to generate market interest. My fave was when Artist BANKSY sold a framed piece of art at Auction and then triggered the frame the piece was mounted in by remote control to activate a hidden document shredder which shredded said artwork and spat it on the floor. Of course he only activated the shredder after it sold for 1.4 Million. Funniest bit is that it's now worth 2 Million. Modern Art. The Kings new clothes.

I often think "I could have made that easily" about some modern art pieces. Once you have made a name for yourself you can suddenly sell almost anything for a high price it seems.

Well said. Once an artists work has "value", especially modern art imho. They can crank out just about anything as collectors are paying for the brand more than "art".

I remember hearing about that and getting a kick out of it too. I always get a laugh out of when things like that are considered "art." To me it's over the top but to each his own I guess. If someone wanted to pay me a bunch of money to say, make a dagwood sandwich and put it in an art gallery, I guess I wouldn't complain.

Unfortunately the same value concept goes for classic art too, thats why the rich invest to them so much. At whatever price you buy a piece of art, it becomes its official value so the worst case is it will sell to the same value when sold again.

We the people can't own anything (house, gold...) that offers such guarantee

Once an artist is established as a product/brand and his/her work is sold for high dollars, in modern art they can do anything, call it art, and it will bring huge money. It's the kings new clothes kind of thing but that's how the art world sorta works sadly. so yeah, if you got in to the new york modern art scene by knowing somebody per se, and sold your first piece to a collector that the inside guy somehow convinced to buy it, your next piece would have a set value. So you could stick a bannana on your guitar and call it art and expect roughly the same dollar amount at auction as the first piece got. Then several years later, the value goes up

Todd

Yeah, I get it. There's a sucker born every minute. And people with more money than good sense.

Part of the "art", especially in the world of modern or contemporary art is playing the game of the absurd. The first example of something like this was when Marcel DuChamp exhibited a urinal on a gallery wall. His statement was absolutely "is it art now?".

It's crucial to remember that the folks buying this stuff have the money to burn and that it's kind of an inside joke.

Conversely, a whole lot of early and mid 20th cent. modern art went for cheap and the appreciators who purchased it made a killing. Jasper Johns, Jackson Pollak, Mark Rothko just to name a few.

You never know.

No doubt about it. Many have made a killing buying and selling modern or contemporary art. I remember reading about the urinal somewhere as well. But huge profits are never guaranteed when buying and selling, even in the art world. I am fairly certain that there are many works that were bought that ended up being a bust in the end, especially in modern contemporary. Just because something is valued or appraised at a high amount of money doesn't necessarily mean that you can find a buyer. It's always a gamble, but as you say, collectors have money to burn and $120,000 for a banana to most of them is but a drop in the bucket.

Many of the "collectors" in the modern art scene today are not actually art fans but investors. They are looking for pieces that will go up in value so they balance new artist selling cheap with established artist selling for crazy amounts. Many buyers are Saudis these days with just crazy cash to burn and are the hidden bidders on the phone. It's a crazy scene to be sure.

Blondie (the disco/punk singer) has a real Andy Warhol that has been appraised at around $25 Million. She was pals with Warhol back in the day and he just gave it to her. She lets it go on tour at various museums. She had no idea it would be worth so much money when she got it. She also bought a basquait for $300 which is like buying a davinci for lunch money. She was the first to buy any of his work. The scene has changed in some ways but in some ways it's become a bit ridiculous. It's all about being recognized by one of the scene makers and having your work "valued" through a high sale. I guess it's always been about the money, but now it's really about the money.

That's right. Money Laundering is part of it too, perhaps massively so. Mix in a little tax avoidance why not. If you want to clean up your money you can buy some art, perhaps through a firm or broker that turns a blind eye. You'll never get massive sums of cash into a betting machine like a drug dealer might to launder their money. You want to buy art or property among others. It doesn't matter if it's a banana taped to a wall or a raisin skewered with a pencil, as long as it has value attributed by its desired purpose despite having little to no intrinsic value in terms of art.

The art world does have a money laundering problem but the $120,000 banana isn't part of it. 120 K is small change in that world plus, that particular piece self destructs or gets eaten so you can't sell it again and clean the money. The laundering happens on Monets, Picassos and Toulouse-Lautrecs. Stuff that fetches well into the millions of dollars.

As I mentioned before, that banana thing is conceptual and at the same time a "wink and a nod" between artists, gallery owners, collectors and critics. It's a statement. The statement is the art.

Actually it can be sold again as it states in the certificate of the piece that the banana can be replaced as needed, that is if anyone would want to buy it. It is the certificate and concept that holds the actual value if you read the article. So eating the banana is no harm, no foul which is why no charges have been filed against the performance artist that ate the banana.

Ha, ha!
That makes it even more surreal/absurdist.
And you know, the fact that a handful of guitarists on an internet forum are discussing it just adds to the whole thing.
I like it.

Works the same as fiat currency then. Where the lines go apart on the following chart is when the US dropped the gold standard for the dollar, meaning money was no longer backed by Gold. It was simply paper to be printed into oblivion thus devaluing the real value of money, labor and other inputs to economic production.

Click to view attachment

I feel the price of the banana is not only a reflection of the state of how the money supply has been manipulated, but also partly a result of this.



Sadly you are right about housing in terms of its price, which is affected by money printing, low interest rates and increasing debt. 97% of money in the UK economy is debt!

Gold on the other hand is worlds apart. It can’t be replicated in the same way money is mass printed and lent on housing and other assets making prices higher and higher. This is why China and Russia is buying and stock piling the stuff, getting ready for the next fiat currency meltdown. Poland just repatriated 100 tonnes of is own. They see what’s coming.

Anyone can buy gold in my country (UK), even through a tax free ISA savings account. If you don’t want to own physical gold and be responsible for, or rent secure holding yourself, you can get some through an ETF (Exchange Traded Fund), but only one that is backed by physical is wise. I don’t know about Turkey though. These aren’t secure investments however, you can win or lose money (just like most investments). I only put about 10% my money into these kind of things as a “dabbler”.

Some sage advice there. Are you a financial planner by chance? A gold ETF (exchange traded fund) is a very good way to go as it prevents any chance of the gold getting stolen/seized, etc. It's just paper after all pointing to somebody elses gold. We are in a low inflationary period just now, but as soon as inflation begins to bite, gold prices will go NUTS and Gold ETFs will follow suit.

Thanks! I'm not a financial planner though, just an amateur. With precious metal ETFs I always make sure it's backed by the physical commodity itself, not the paper futures version. I hope you're right about Gold prices. I bought at $1170 per ounce now its around $1500 with more up to go hopefully. For a few month it went down from what I bought it for but I wasn't bothered and held because I'm more interested in mega-trends not peaks and troughs.

You're right. The deflation cycle started around 30 years ago, interest rates have fallen again and again making debt cheap and investing in equity / property very easy. Asset / Land owners become richer and richer and a Banana taped to a wall goes for $120k. There's 3 times as much debt now as there was just before the last great financial crash of 2008 - 2010! Debt must increase forever or the system breaks. It's a massive ponzi scheme. Economic Rent seeking shrinks the real economy. They can't keep the plates spinning forever.

Gold is worthless if it hits the fan.. Everyone that has gold is going to come get my beef and grain and what will they be able to give me for it ...Nothing , at least not until I see that the gold will be worth something , meaning I see that gold being tradable for something I need

Yes, in a Mad Max 2 scenario only things like food, water, defense and petrol would have value. You'd only need fiat money for toilet paper. Never mind a Banana taped to the wall.

Short of an oncoming collapse of our entire economic system, e.g. the end of the world that many conspiracy theorists have been predicting for decades now as a way to sell bunker goods and taint wipes. Short of that, I think we will be ok. Just avoid listening to Alex Jones and info wars and life starts looking a lot better

Inflation is set to bite and bite fairly soon. We are at full employment. That is one of the historical drivers of inflation. Once we hit full employment getting new labor gets harder. Prices for labor increase. Inputs for everything else go up as well and Gold goes NUTS, I"d say gold will be at 2k within a year or so. Time will tell
Todd

In the 'end times' scenario, if that banana is still ripe and paper money is worthless - maybe it will go for a few million.

I don't really believe in that kind off scenario .
How long could you survive , if there was a disruption in your food source right now . Most have maybe a week. This is more what i think will happen , a temporary malfunction of things we take for granted causing us a momentary lapse in our life style and when it does, Gold will be of no value .

that being said, no I don't like the way our government is spending and printing money , but that is a conversation for another Website

A couple weeks ago I went to the local Ford dealership to pick up a part for my truck that I had ordered. They couldn't sell it to me because their internet was down and one of the guys at the parts dept said that they couldn't even clock in for work and joked that they were working for free. I was blown away that they couldn't do business simply because of a lack of an internet connection. I told them to call me when they could sell it to me. 2 days later they called. Unbelievable! And after blaming their service provider initially, it turns out that it wasn't even the service providers fault and it was a problem with the dealerships own network, probably something as simple as rebooting a modem or router I would wager.

It's a brave new world eh Some places the register won't even open unless the unit has a wifi or ethernet connection. We are living in a connected world. When that connection has an interuption, things get wonky quick.

Yes, we might get start of a reflation cycle. In the UK inflation figures include the prices of computer games but not house prices or rents. The money system is rigged.



Yes, if you have some bundles left after using it for fire wood, or toilet paper. In Wiemar republic 1923 it took 1 Trillion paper marks to buy one gold mark.



Me neither, it was your beef and grain scenario if those were the only kind of things with any value. It's fiat money that is the bankers trick, Gold is just a form of value that cannot be manipulated so easily by them.

I can think of many words to describe the "New World" in this case but "Brave" isn't one of them.

Click to view attachment

I understood the reference. Thanks. What I am getting at is, being so dependent on any one thing in order to function is not only foolish, it's dangerous and not in any way brave.

Ps: I don't believe that there are any critical services that are so reliant on an internet connection that they cease to function without it in the way the parts dept at the Ford dealership I visited does, at least I hope not. Still, the experience was a bit disturbing to me.

Ok, i wanted to post this in the forum since this Bana art work was all over the news but i just didn't find the time.
so, here we are...
without exposing your thoughts about whether you think this Banan art thing is ridiculous or it's a fine piece of Art,
i want each of you to put a musical work which it can be a genre of music, a song, a band or an entire album..etc that reflects your thoughts/ideas about this Banana-duct tape art work.. al you have to do is reply with musical work without any comment .. and the reader will try to figure out the rest.

I agree That's why I used the Huxley quote. Same page for once!
Todd


And for video...

Coincidentally and off topic, today is Frank Zappa's birthday (Dec, 21st). So Happy Birthday to Frank and happy Winter Solstice!