Guess what’s coming to auction? And other ART news you need to know…

[@odinlarsen_]

Great video! Looking forward to the live streams

[@christopherwestpresents]

Thank you!

[@elijah1437]

I would definitely tune into 50min versions of your videos

[@christopherwestpresents]

So nice of you to say! But even a 10 minute video takes sooooo long to make 😢

[@elijah1437]

@@christopherwestpresents Oh I can totally imagine. Do whatever works for you. Video essays hit the algorithm like crack these days, and you don't even have to put much work into b-roll I'm interested in hearing you pontificate on your opinions about various things contemporary art too, not just the fact-finding stuff. Nevertheless, I will just keep watching through your back-catalogue. (Also if you wanna do a video on what art publications or podcasts you think are interesting or helpful, that would be cool too)

[@bernanevarez8182]

Selling a banana, duct tape and a certificate for over 1 million dollars is just so sad and feels incredibly wrong

[@christopherwestpresents]

I get it. But I love that art can now be anything.

[@alexanderrochester9679]

@@christopherwestpresentswhy?

[@cedarraine7829]

It might be art, but it’s not Great Art.

[@christopherwestpresents]

@@cedarraine7829 one of my favorite things about art is that we can all only like 10% of what we see. But that 10% is different for everyone.

[@nikibordeaux]

​@christopherwestpresents Haven't we been there already with "R. Mutt" 100 years ago?

[@JiveDadson]

Lede buried here: 3:42. You're welcome.

[@d718pinter]

From a Sotheby's email I got this morning: "In the coming days, we will complete our acquisition of the iconic Breuer building in New York, which previously housed three of NYC’s most important museums. The Breuer will reopen to the public as our flagship gallery next year, complete with a full slate of programming - and yes, there will be a restaurant." Charles F. Stewart Chief Executive Officer, Sotheby’s

[@MrFeefle]

Great idea to do regular art news like this! Thanks! Please do a video on these Moco museums that seem to be popping up around Europe - they seem like a scam somehow, mostly showing Warhols and street art, but trying to advertise a wider collection....

[@christopherwestpresents]

I’ll need to look into these Moco museums. Haven’t heard that term before.

[@mattia7277]

I saw it in Barcelona. Its definitely very "hype beast" with art from Murakami, Banksy, AI art and some other hypebeast things. But overall I enjoyed it as I got to see some works from Basquiat and an amazing exhibition of Guillermo Lorca which is a great contemporary artist who lives in barcelona. In any case, all of the artists chosen, including Basquiat and Lorca are there not for the art but for their fame in barcelona.

[@Nashvillain10SE]

🎈🥳🥳🎉🎉🎊🎊🎈🎈 *Congratulations on 10,000 subscribers!!!* 🎈🥳🥳🎉🎉🎊🎊🎈🎈

[@christopherwestpresents]

Thank you so much!! You’ll always be one of the firsts :)

[@user-td2lg1fl6h]

Keep up the good work Chris! Your video on On Kawara has really made me appreciate post modernist art more than i would.

[@christopherwestpresents]

So nice to hear. Thank you!

[@sherrykerlin1047]

Thank you for the info!

[@christopherwestpresents]

Thanks for watching!

[@jamesduncan578]

Hi Chris, I'm a little lost on the "banana". I think the picture on the wall behind you said it all.

[@christopherwestpresents]

Haha. Fair enough. It probably says a lot about me that I like both!

[@jbb-cj1md]

Cattelan originally made three of the banana pieces, two of which were sold and one donated to an institution. The sucker er, I mean, the buyer of the one that will be auctioned will receive a certificate of authenticity and directions for showing it. The buyer will also receive a new banana and a roll of duct tape. (Catellan apparently likes duct tape; he once duct taped a dealer to the wall of his gallery).

[@christopherwestpresents]

Yes an edition of 3. Sold much like a Sol LeWitt wall drawing.

[@gabriellawarner9037]

would you ever consider recording longer chats and putting them on spotify as podacsts ??? would 100% listen!!

[@christopherwestpresents]

Possibly! But that seems like a whole diffferent animal and these videos already take forever to produce. Will look more into it!

[@JiveDadson]

Conspicuous consumption? Gulibility? Bigger fool theory? Money laundering? Impossible to tell.

[@jimmyjetpack1199]

All of the above.

[@bidoro_12]

Always always! refreshing to watch your videos, to hear you narrate. 😊

[@christopherwestpresents]

You don’t know what this means to me to hear this. Thank you!

[@osobad1127]

The art world be craaaaazy 😂

[@Menstral]

No ghetto talk

[@christopherwestpresents]

That’s one of the things that keeps it fun!

[@star_wars_miniatures]

I watched the most recent Christie’s and Sotheby’s auctions in London live and they were fantastic 😍😍

[@christopherwestpresents]

As you know I love watching the auctions!

[@star_wars_miniatures]

@@christopherwestpresents yes you do! It’s so exciting 😍 I always feel like it’s a great opportunity to see these pieces as some of them will just go into private collections and won’t been seen again!

[@christopherwestpresents]

@@star_wars_miniatures so true.

[@ChrisC-ei2kc]

Counterfeiting, lots and lots of counterfeiting. And money laundering. Lots and lots of money laundering.

[@christopherwestpresents]

Buying something at a low price and selling it for a higher price is not money laundering.

[@Baumscheibenkunst]

As far as I can remember the banana has been eaten. So now it's a shriveled brown peel or what exactly is it that will come to market in november?

[@andnowi]

Didn't a cleaner eat the original banana?

[@christopherwestpresents]

Yes the original banana was eaten by a different artist, which he called art.

[@ola_vii]

@@Baumscheibenkunst The exact items to be sold are banana, duct tape and a certificate of authenticity.

[@jeannagai5290]

its the idea of the banana taped on a wall. and the certificate of authenticity with cattelan's name. so only 3 authentic artworks of this "exist".

[@Baumscheibenkunst]

@@ola_vii thanks for making this clear. I am afraid this kind of art is way over my head lol

[@ionlyemergeafterdark]

I have a banana and some duct tape. If I want to sell it, can I exlude the wall? I need to keep my wall. Starting bid is £2million.

[@christopherwestpresents]

Sadly it doesn’t really work that way.

[@Godfree1212]

You don’t have a recognized name and you haven’t slept with and done drugs with the right crowd. Once you have a name you can package your excrement and sell it. Oh sorry, that’s already been done.

[@KeithBrighouse-r3k]

I've been to a couple of Frieze and Art Basel art fairs and I'd rather spend my time at a flea market, it's more interesting, less pretentious and the people are more authentic. The art and knick-knacks are more visually interesting too. Art fairs are no way to show serious art seriously, the context of art fairs turns art into luxury bric-à-brac, up market kitsch. But I guess that is capitalism, when everything is turned into a commodity with monetary value, any intrinsic cultural value is sucked out of the art. Conceptual art works well out there in the real world but when it is in a white walled gallery, it tends to become a lame joke told too often and it is often the same old joke that is 100 years old now. One despairs.

[@christopherwestpresents]

If I were a retired multimillionaire and could just travel and look at art in museums and galleries I would prefer that too. But alas, I’m not and the fairs offer a good opportunity to see more than I ever could otherwise.

[@usainengland]

I hear you. Art and craft have become comically disconnected. I despair that museums often display hyped than talented artists. Anyone want a cellophane wrapped potato?

[@quietbirt]

Well said.

[@DaveHoltArtMusic]

Interesting video, I got stuck on the, the banana can't be real, I pictured them bringing out this old brown shriveled up banana with old duck tape holding its rotting fragments onto a white surface, as the auctioneer says, let's start at $900,000. Remember, when Damien Hirst shark preserved in formaldehyde purchased by some billionaire was rotting! HaHa

[@drobbi]

"Summed up" how?

[@matineesonmainstreet2005]

Maybe I'm missing something, but bananas seem to go bad rather quickly in my kitchen. HOw can you sell a six year old banana? Is it fake? Refrigerated? sculpted?

[@christopherwestpresents]

You’re buying a certificate. The banana is replaceable 🍌

[@candeaguilar]

Sotheby’s needs help? Can’t be serious

[@christopherwestpresents]

I’m guessing they’ll likely survive.

[@hjcvskggiuuhbhjdrt]

Would someone please explain what is the conceptual difference between the duct tape banana and Marcel Duchamp’s urinal-fountain?

[@amyhogarten5038]

One is brilliant and the other is literal trash.

[@christopherwestpresents]

You can’t have the former without the latter.

[@bigtosz]

Seriously? Fountain is a tangible thing that sits on a pedestal somewhere and can only exist in one place at one time. Comedian is more like Sol LeWitt's murals; it's a certified set of plans that you use to re-create the piece wherever and whenever you like, and it goes away after a limited time.🍌

[@amyhogarten5038]

@@hjcvskggiuuhbhjdrt Duchamp’s act of taking the urinal fountain out of its original context and placing it in a gallery setting was an exercise in “Re-Presentation”. That is, taking an object out if it’s original context and modifying it in some way to bring out the “latencies” of its form, where it can be interpreted/understood/appreciated in some new way. For instance, Claes Oldenburg would modifying the scale of common everyday objects, such as a clothespin and re-presenting it at momental size. Similar works by the Pop Art Movement followed this operation in painting and sculpture. Cambell’s soup cans yada yada yada (not that there’s anything wrong with that). With regards to the banana, perhaps it’s an exercise in demonstrating the absurdity of the modern day art market, where individuals will pay millions for works that are hard to justify in terms of their monetary value, as little merit, value, craftsmanship, technique or other factors traditionally associated with the value of an artwork can be quantified. I don’t really know; I’m sure there are several critical and/or academic “wordsplaining” that comes with the piece that motivates a person to pay millions for an ephemeral item such as duck tape and perishable produce. Of course, one could take either a urinal or a banana, put it in their residence and then say to their friends “Ok so I have some art now”. But you know, to each his own or whatever people say nowadays…

[@robertpritchard9962]

It's pronounced BROY-er.

[@quietbirt]

To appreciate art, you probably need to be an artist, or at least to have carefully studied thousands of works of real fine art. So it can't be just anyone. So for the general public, businessmen have come up with a surrogate called "modern art."

[@MocEmma]

Contemporary*

[@quietbirt]

@@MocEmma You're right. But I thought these terms basically mean the same thing.

[@MocEmma]

@@quietbirt People use them wrong 😅, because they don't know that the modern era ended many decades ago. So you have engineers and people from other areas calling today's work modern and this era modern too, which makes people think it's the same for art.

[@amyhogarten5038]

@@quietbirt it’s not necessarily “modern art” per say, but the “art marketplace in contemporary society” There are back room calculation at play that involves a semi-coordinated effort by particular artists, art dealers, art critics, and the galleries that create conditions where a literal piece of rotting fruit can fetch fast sums which profits all parties. Why? Money laundering. An Uber wealthy “art collector” buys an item that is rubber stamped as “fine art” by the Art-Industrial Complex, holds the “certificate of authenticity” for this “work” for a specific period of time, and then sells this item at loss. This creates an opportunity to write the loss off, and offset a yearly income earning via the quantified loss. In the millions. I wouldn’t say ALL modern artwork is used as a vehicle for such schemes and all such scenarios can be consider so black and white. For instance, the self shredding of the Bansky piece “girl with balloon” could be “appreciated” (and also valued) based on whether one sees the cleverness of the commentary by the artist and also the “art event” that it created, given that it is now a “historical event” in 21st century art. I don’t know, perhaps only the “experts” can advise. This is why we can’t have nice things anymore.

[@johnconn982]

Chris, I think that banana might be a fake, you can’t leave a banana out for long before it gets real mushy and yucky. Please report this to the authorities and if there is a reward I will share it with you,ok ?

[@christopherwestpresents]

Hahaha. Deal!

[@bitsoars4232]

Whoooa mattress factory mug spotted

[@christopherwestpresents]

Yes! Love the MF :)

[@justinleemiller]

Poor people subsidize this industry. In the US people go into serious debt to get art degrees. In Europe taxes pay for it. The gold industry is more moral.

[@christopherwestpresents]

The price of grad school is another hot topic for sure.

[@mendedarrows9394]

You still buried the lead lol.. headlines on headlines followed by an intro. Then started with the Sotheby’s story. This content is garbage, but art all the way same.

[@christopherwestpresents]

Thanks for watching!