I Dropped A Pan Last Night Getting Ready To Cook, And My Wife Called An Agent

Through my late teens and early twenties, I was basically a social beer drinker. Somewhere between my thirties and now, wine crept into the mix, and over the years it became my preferred alcoholic beverage of choice.

There really isn’t such a thing as a true beer snob; sure, some people will drink only premium brands, but those slugging down their Budweiser couldn’t care less. Beer is beer, and no one cares what anyone else is drinking.

Perrotin gallery's booth during Art Basel Miami Beach, a banana was taped to the wall with duct tape

On the other hand, wine is different. You can’t sneak Boones Farm past someone expecting Whispering Angel Rosé, but in most cases the gap isn’t that wide. Years ago, a friend told me the great thing about wine is that you can feel free to drink whatever you like. Which was great news for me, because my wine preferences range from about $9 to around $30. I can appreciate the $50 to $1,000 bottles, of course, but I don't drink them during the week.

Wine is like art. It’s a very individual thing. The dollar value makes very little difference. I have seen art many people would think is worthless that I loved, and I have stared at other pieces worth millions that I wouldn’t hang in my house.

There are limits to what can be considered art. For instance, you can't put salt water in a fancy bottle and call it wine, and you shouldn't be able to label cans tied with string to the bumper of a wedding car as art either. However, some individuals are creating even more outrageous things and, due to their reputation, are managing to pass them off as art.

In 2019, at the Perrotin gallery's booth during Art Basel Miami Beach, a banana was taped to the wall with duct tape. Yes, a real banana was taped to the wall with a single piece of duct tape.

However, there was a problem. Visitors ate the banana during its initial 2019 run in Miami. They ate it again at the Leeum Museum of Art in Seoul in 2023, and again at the Center Pompidou-Metz in France.

Eventually, the banana taped to the wall not only wasn’t eaten, but it was sold at Sotheby's in New York for $6.2 million.

Yes, you read that correctly. A banana taped to a wall sold for $6.2 million. That isn’t the end of the story. Buyers actually receive a certificate of authenticity and instructions on how to replace the fruit when it rots, meaning the physical banana is regularly swapped out.

Right.

Jessica Cook’s idea of art is equally crazy

I understand the idea of having so much money that you can dispose of it any way you want, but $6.2 million for a banana taped to a wall is insanity.

Speaking of insanity, Jessica Cook’s idea of art is equally crazy. In a production she calls Roulette, she drags a bucket across the floor with a rope and calls that art.

The show is described as:

Artist Jessica Cook jesicoook returns 11.19 with Breaks, a two-night solo performance of new material.

The piece is a physical exploration of nonsense-making through fragmentation, the compression of sound, and movement scores, paired with constructed sound costumes and “toys” created by the artist.

Here’s a clip of Jessica in Litany, a recent structured/unstructured improvisation connected to the new work she’s developing this fall. Filmed at Pageant in Brooklyn.

Does everything have to be so weird? If this is art, then what isn’t art? The only people I can even imagine liking this are the multi-colored hair freaks that show up at rallies to scream at the sky and call President Trump a fascist.

On the bright side, at least now we know how to keep them entertained.