Banana with an Idea

R. Mutt signed BANANA WITH AN IDEA. Limited edition, 2022.

A century of conceptual art in a nutshell. In 1917, a ready-made titled Fountain was rejected for a New York exhibit.

Fountain is a horizontally placed urinal, signed R. Mutt, probably by Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven. Marcel Duchamp, who has become known for it, asks when something is art, or whether a ready-made may simply be called art.

Fountain is seen as the beginning of conceptual art and was voted the most influential work of art of the twentieth century in 2004. Recovering from pneumonia on the island of Capri, Joseph Beuys invented his Capri Battery in 1985.

The object, a lamp with a plug stuck into a lemon, in a wooden box with an instruction from Beuys (replace the battery after 1000 hours), was sold. Limited edition of 200.

The principle is the use of nature as an ecologically responsible fuel. It follows Beuys’s interest in energy and the environmental movement, and the boundary between nature and culture.

In 2019 Maurizio Cattelan came up with a banana stuck to the wall with duct tape: Comedian, an edition of three. Cattelan said that the banana is supposed to represent a banana.

The concept contains instructions and diagrams for hanging the work. A century ago it began with R. Mutt and the question of art.

More than fifty years ago Beuys, with his conceptual art, turns everything into theory, and recently Cattelan makes his concept a joke (Comedian). Banana with an Idea restores honour to R. Mutt, the anonymous artist, and holds up a mirror to well-known artists who regularly get away with blatant plagiarism.

Once it turns out that Cattelan’s duct-taped banana had been done before, he becomes a Comedian himself. No water comes out of Fountain.

The ready-made represents a fountain. Banana with an Idea, by contrast, is no longer a ready-made: the banana is made of concrete.

Unlike the Capri Battery, this lamp does work.