As I’ve grown older I’ve become more aware of what I can best describe as the ‘unrealities of life’. These are the things that we convince ourselves have some real value, whether moral, financial, or intellectual, when the truth is they either have no value at all, or they actually propagate negative values.
There have been many examples of these over time, the latest being what’s become known as the ‘6.2 million dollar banana’. If I take a 40 cent banana and duct tape it to my wall, does that make my house worth $6.2M? No, of course it doesn’t. The idea is ludicrous. It’s equally ludicrous for some egotistical billionaire to spend $6.2M on purchasing this idiocy at an art auction. It’s a good example of an unreality of life, and one with negative value.
Why is this an example of negative value? Because the only person who benefited from this lunacy is the ‘artist’ who had the idea. Maurizio Cattelan, is now millions of dollars better off, but he was hardly poverty-stricken before.
I’m not suggesting Cattelan lacks talent, merely that he uses his name rather than his talent, to make money. Think about it, if an old person with dementia had been persuaded to part with all their cash after being told a banana stuck to their wall with duct tape was worth a fortune, the fraudster would be just that, a criminal con artist.
Perhaps the true perpetrator of this ‘negative value’ is the purchaser of one banana and a piece of duct tape for an obscene sum of money. $6.2M can buy a lot of good in the world, help the homeless, heal sick people, further solutions to climate change.
The purchaser also receives a Certificate of Authenticity from the artist that grants the owner the permission and authority to reproduce the banana and duct tape on their wall as an original artwork by Maurizio Cattelan.
So, if I go out and buy a bunch of bananas and a large roll of duct tape and stick bananas all over the walls of my house, can Maurizio Cattelan then sue me? A wholly ludicrous idea!
The whole concept is just another example of how we human beings create such ‘unrealities of life’, in an attempt to avoid the often less palatable true reality.