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The feeding frenzy prompted in the media by Cattalan's banana is part of regular pattern. Whether it's Banksy's shredding or the stealing of Cattelan's gold toilet, the art world has proved to be a fertile resource in the news cycle. And it's all down to conceptual art. /1
The thing about conceptual art is that it has no solid or finite meaning. So the work can exist simultaneously in many minds at once, and all those minds can see it differently. The artist offers the clues. The spectator offers the reading. You see what you want to see. /2
This flexibility makes conceptual art a precious and very lucrative commodity. This was Duchamp's great discovery. Basically you are selling back to the spectator what they want to see! It's the perfect gift! Something for everyone. /3
Thus the rich art collector in Miami, who wants a Maurizio Cattalan, is keen to spend $120,000 on a banana taped to the wall because what they see before them is a signature art work that everyone is talking about and which brings big reputational value to their collection. /4
Clever curators read it differently. What they see before them is a deliberately subversive artwork - a typical Cattalan - that is actively but sneakily mocking rich collectors and the art establishment. They see the banana as an attack on the same system that is promoting it./5
Then, of course, there are the non art world observers who see it as an exemplary example of the contemporary art con, and who whip out, yet again, their favourite line about 'the emperor's new clothes'. /6
And let's not forget the artist in this cornucopia of reactions. Cattalan, who has no formal art training, and who started out as a furniture maker, sees himself as a kind of art Robin Hood, a conceptual outlaw, who's playing both ends of the system against each other. /7
None of these reactions is certifiably wrong or certifiably right. There is no right or wrong in conceptual art. What you see is what you want to see. Thus conceptual art plays on our vanity. When we like it, we are liking ourselves. Our vision. Our interpretation. /8
When we don't like it, we are STILL liking ourselves. Our vision. Our interpretation. It's a win/win position, guaranteed to succeed in a world that's lost sight of real values and real achievement. As Marx put it: 'All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned'.
