TO PUT AN END TO BANANAS AND THE ART MARKET ONCE AND FOR ALL! A WORK THAT WAS ALREADY PART OF THE CHANGE IN SOCIETY THAT WAS COMING AND THAT THE...
DRAMATIC SITUATION IN WHICH THE WORLD FINDS ITSELF WITH COVD-19, NOW PRECIPITATES TOWARDS CHANGES THAT WILL BE RADICAL
A "WORK-INFORMATION", TO BE IMAGINED BY EACH OF YOU AS A MEDIA SPACE, PUT UP FOR SALE IN PARIS BY THE S-MORTIER GALLERY, AS A SOCIOLOGICAL ART EXPERIENCE FOR AN AMOUNT OF 120.000 $ USD, THAT IS TO SAY 108.120 €!
TITLE OF THE WORK: " Still life on Space Media, or invisible banana on a white Limoges porcelain plate ".
The banana that occupied the Centre of the plate suddenly disappeared without any scientific explanation to date.
It so happens that a work sold at Art Basel Miami Beach in December 2019 ignited the debate and "gossip" about art, according to Philipp Kennicott of the Washington Post, about the nature of the work, its mode of exhibition, its excessive price, and its over-mediatization. Alain Robbe-Grillet, ten years earlier, in the alleys of the same art fair Basel Miami, confided to Fred Forest in a premonitory way that the collectors were already interested, here, in three things: the ART, the MONEY, the EVENT!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VEQk82Mrko
What confirmed in December 2019 the sale of the famous banana of the Italian artist by the Galerie Perrotin
THE WORK NOW PROPOSED BY FRED FOREST:
This work, of the Italian artist, the well named Comedian, inspires today to the artist and theorist, Fred Forest, (Phd Sorbonne) the creation of a critical, demonstrative, participative work, in conformity with his usual modes of creations, of which he enunciates the protocol below. Obviously, it is not a question of a plagiarism even parodic of the creator of this work, as it was abundantly done on the social networks. But the affair of Forest is all the more serious that it is a question for him of creating a really original and explanatory work, of complementary nature, that takes support by the institutional analysis that he makes of it on the very context that saw it being born. In a way, it is about putting it into the abyss in the context of the irresponsibility that strikes our elites today. Any comparison kept, as Picasso could conceive of redoing Velasquez's Meninas with the visual means and spirit of his time, this half-century later, long before conceptual art was established and recognized. Forest, tries to do the same today, by appropriating in a way what is relevant as basic material of the art market. That is to say, by producing a work having for critical subject and pretext another work... A work, staged by Galerie Perrotin, which has had the remarkable result of creating an economic, media, sociological and incidentally artistic event of the first order in the context of the 2019 Basel Miami Beach Art Fair, and which has had worldwide repercussions. What, at Forest, connects in filigree in his artistic practice from a philosophical point of view, to his own "critical strategies of conceptual diversions" where the artistic appropriation must be brought closer to the deconstruction and the intertextuality, as also of the theory of the media and the communication. The interest in his work, shown by Marshall McLuhan, Edgar Morin, Vilem Flusser, Derrick de Kerckhove, Pierre Mo?glin, is ample proof of this.
THE PROTOCOL OF THE WORK PROPOSED BY FOREST.
1-The post-conceptual work of sociological art that Forest offers us here will be hung and visible on the walls of the Galery Stéphane Mortier at 77 rue Amelot in the eleventh arrondissement of Paris during its participatory exhibition of the SPACE-MEDIA 2020 - The work consists of a virgin SPACE MEDIA on which is placed a plate of Limoges, the whole framed, protected by anti-reflective glass, bearing its title at the base.
Above is Fred Forest's work-information called THE INVISIBLE BANANE.
2-The presentation will result in an invitation being sent to 400 (Four hundred French collectors), most of whom are members of an association that organises and awards the Marcel Duchamp Prize every year with the help of the Centre Pompidou during the FIAC. These collectors, guided by FRED FOREST himself, visited his retrospective at the Centre Pompidou in July 2017. As a result, most of them have an in-depth knowledge of his artistic practice, notably documented by the illustrated catalogue, published on this occasion by a private publisher (the Centre Pompidou having refused to publish it, which had never happened before since its creation for an artist invited to produce a retrospective!) Finally, as a result, distributed by the Librairie Flammarion located on the ground floor of the Centre Pompidou, but not available upstairs in its own boutiques. This book featured names such as Pierre Restany, Edgar Morin, Vilem Flusser, Anthony Haden-Guest, Mario Costa, Pierre Lévy, Pierre Mo?glin, Derrick de Kerckhove, Louis José Lestocart, etc., but which the young curator in charge of the retrospective had not found prestigious enough to feature in her own.
3-in the correspondence he addresses to these collectors, the artist offers them the purchase of this so-called invisible work, but visible at the Gallery Mortier, at the price of $120,000 each, i.e. 108,120 € (Commercial reference price established on the sale of a similar banana product, made on the occasion of Art Basel Miami Beach 2019 by the Gallery Perrotin!).
4-The fact that this purchase of the invisible banana is proposed to French collectors in priority, if by chance it were to be purchased by one of them, it would immediately constitute a significant operation of national interest, at a time when Paris, since the last FIAC of 2019, is the object of a renewed interest in contemporary art. Let us note, as a favourable omen for this happy outcome, the collector who made the purchase of "Comedian" already turns out to be of French nationality... By a happy spillover effect, one can think, with a little optimism, that a new purchase, made in this way, blow by blow, would benefit French artists, under-represented on the international market, French institutions having always been unable to support them, except for a quarter of them (always the same ones) for more than twenty years...
5- On Tuesday, June 2, 2020 at 11 am (by invitation) Fred Forest organizes a press conference on the Invisible Banana, at the table of which participates Jean-Jacques Gay art critic of Artension, Juliette Bompoint director of the Association Mains d' Oeuvres which should benefit in totality from the proceeds of this sale, Christophe Pouilly planer-stratégique and ALAIN DOMINIQUE PERRIN, collector and President of the Fondation Cartier et du Jeu de Paume.
6-The date of Tuesday, June 2 at 6 pm (public), a delegation of art critics led by Paul Ardenne will go to the Galerie S-Mortier to see what happened to the sale of "Still Life, known as the invisible banana in a white Limoges porcelain plate". He will question the gallery owner on this point in the presence of the press.
Master, Eric Le Marec, Judicial Officer required by Fred Forest to receive the funds of the possible purchasers of the "Invisible Banana" and to ensure the legal regularity of the operation will make the balance sheet of the purchase proposals that reached him.
Two situations are to be considered:
a)-First case of figure:
The work sold well at the indicated price. The Bailiff will hand the check in person to Juliette Bompoint, director of the Association Mains d'Oeuvres. In this way he inaugurates a new function that of artist-philanthropist ;-) The French or foreign buyer can remain anonymous, but can also be present and questioned by the press if he wishes. The champagne is blasted.
The conceptual work called, “0euvre-information”, thus constituted will then take its true existence with a new dimension for its author, in the form of a certificate of authenticity, signed by the artist. The object will be given to the purchaser against a check of 120.000 $ usd or 108120 € in the presence of the gallery owner Stéphane Mortier and of Master Eric Le Marec, court bailiff. We will then note that the sum representing this sale of an exceptional amount, chosen by the artist himself, is strictly equivalent to the banana sold by Galerie Perrotin in Miami. The nature of the subject and the unconventional, but very personal way of treating them by each of the two artists, will highlight a talent well shared, although particular and personal by the style, the mediums used, and especially the meaning and the finality of their works.
A talent that fully justifies that the selling price of the two works are identical for an artistic value recognized in principle at least equal? Indeed, both artists have prestigious careers, each in its own genre, almost similar, except that the selling prices of the second of the two artists are incredibly higher than those of the first! Forest moreover refuses in general to sell his works, except exceptional circumstances. What Bernard Blistène director of the MNAM/Pompidou had to see himself refused to his great spite during a meal at Chez Georges in the presence of Alain Seban and Emma Lavigne in May 2016 during the well-oiled ritual officially ratifying his retrospective in the place. Fred Forest estimating that the price that was offered to him by the Centre Pompidou was far inferior to his personal estimate and that he was convinced that he would pay double or triple in a few years, and on the other hand that the fact of being part of the collections of the Centre Pompidou that one made him assert did not justify in anything for him to consent to a discount.
Fred Forest, below, is considered as the pioneer of video and digital art in France
Small detail which has its importance: It should be noted that the proceeds from the sale of the work exhibited at the Galerie S-Mortier will be entirely donated to an association of artists, "l'Association Mains d'?uvre de Saint Ouen", recently deprived by the mayor of this commune in the Parisian suburbs of a place of work for these artists.
b-Second case:
The work has unfortunately not found a buyer at the asking price... The artist will read aloud a short text on this failure and will try in his capacity as a theorist of sociological art to give some factual reasons. This text will in a way become an integral part of the final work, and will constitute its artistic, sociological, aesthetic and philosophical justification as a post-conceptual sociological work of art. The art critics present, led by Paul Ardenne, will then start a debate with the public on the price of the works and their astonishing disparity on the market according to the artists. Disparity, it should be noted, not based on any objective artistic criteria justifying such differences...but solely on the manipulations of art market operators.
HOW IS IT THAT OUT OF THE 400 COLLECTORS THAT HAVE SOLICITED, NOT ONE HAS DEVOTED HIMSELF TO ACQUIRE THIS WORK? ESPECIALLY SINCE MOST OF THEM VISITED THE ARTIST'S RETROSPECTIVE IN 2017 AT THE POMPIDOU CENTER?
SEARCH ME!
Especially since it was at the same time a good deed to do? The mystery remains complete but that undoubtedly June 2 in front of the work in question Galerie S-Mortier Paul Ardenne will advance some ke
In any case, the artist will underline the factual success of his committed experience as a sociological Art TP, insofar as the latter reveals the mechanisms and conditioning to which collectors themselves are subjected, whose choices no longer depend on their free will, but only on the "influencers" of all kinds, directly or indirectly linked to the networks constituted by world contemporary art. These are at the service of various financial and institutional powers, of which they themselves are stakeholders at one level or another. The experimental model proposed here by Fred Forest for the highlighting of the mechanisms of the art market works perfectly. Proof is thus well made, that the purchases like the price of the works in matter of contemporary art are determined, no longer by the quality, the specificity, the innovation of the work itself, but by the image that the media send back of the artist, the financial power of the gallery that proposes the sale, the importance devoted to its promotional budget, the richness of its relational and media network, its position in the world geography. The demand for acquisition and the sale prices of the proposed works are no longer intrinsically linked to aesthetic and quality criteria, but are based on a complex and twisted chemistry concocted by the art world as Arthur Danto calls it. An art world where works are now essentially considered as financial products, their values no longer being based primarily on criteria of an artistic nature, but rather described, submitted, indexed and adjusted on a grid of stock market parameters. This in a climate of unbridled speculation, non-transparency and even money laundering, as denounced by Georgina Adam, writer and critic for the Financial Times, in her book "The hidden face of art", Beaux art 2017, Paris.
In this situation of confusion, Fred Forest, suggests that the legitimacy to fix the price of the work should return in last resort to the artist, only able to be able to estimate the sweat, the energy, the patience, the time, the talent, the intelligence and the creativity that will have been necessary to him to realize it. On the other hand, no one can deny that, like any market, the art market is linked to the laws of supply and demand. And everyone knows it, even if everyone pretends to ignore it, the art market is a market maintained artificially by a few major collectors, very powerful galleries, heads of international institutions, a few art critics, and even a handful of artists and the media. All these people, by the power of money or institutions at their disposal, subject the public to the bludgeoning and ideological conditioning of their models. Even the major museums are lagging behind these new prescribers and are no longer the ones that enshrine the true values of art.
Some will judge the position of Forest vain and as showing a deep naivety, the exemplary fight that he leads alone against the Centre Pompidou since years for the transparency on his acquisitions gives him however right. After having succeeded in investing
Small detail which has its importance: It should be noted that the proceeds from the sale of the work exhibited at the Galerie S-Mortier will be entirely donated to an association of artists, "l'Association mains d'?uvre de Saint Ouen", recently deprived by the mayor of this commune in the Parisian suburbs of a place of work for these artists.
b-Second case:
The work has unfortunately not found a buyer at the asking price... The artist will read aloud a short text on this failure and will try in his capacity as a theorist of sociological art to give some factual reasons. This text will in a way become an integral part of the final work, and will constitute its artistic, sociological, aesthetic and philosophical justification as a post-conceptual sociological work of art. The art critics present, led by Paul Ardenne, will then start a debate with the public on the price of the works and their astonishing disparity on the market according to the artists. Disparity, it should be noted, not based on any objective artistic criteria justifying such differences...but solely on the manipulations of art market operators.
In any case, the artist will underline the factual success of his committed experience as a sociological Art TP, insofar as the latter reveals the mechanisms and conditioning to which collectors themselves are subjected, whose choices no longer depend on their free will, but only on the "influencers" of all kinds, directly or indirectly linked to the networks constituted by world contemporary art. These are at the service of various financial and institutional powers, of which they themselves are stakeholders at one level or another. The experimental model proposed here by Fred Forest for the highlighting of the mechanisms of the art market works perfectly. Proof is thus well made, that the purchases like the price of the works in matter of contemporary art are determined, no longer by the quality, the specificity, the innovation of the work itself, but by the image that the media send back of the artist, the financial power of the gallery that proposes the sale, the importance devoted to its promotional budget, the richness of its relational and media network, its position in the world geography. The demand for acquisition and the sale prices of the proposed works are no longer intrinsically linked to aesthetic and quality criteria, but are based on a complex and twisted chemistry concocted by the art world as Arthur Danto calls it. An art world where works are now essentially considered as financial products, their values no longer being based primarily on criteria of an artistic nature, but rather described, submitted, indexed and adjusted on a grid of stock market parameters. This in a climate of unbridled speculation, non-transparency and even money laundering, as denounced by Georgina Adam, writer and critic for the Financial Times, in her book "The hidden face of art", Beaux art 2017, Paris.
In this situation of confusion, Fred Forest, suggests that the legitimacy to fix the price of the work should return in last resort to the artist, only able to be able to estimate the sweat, the energy, the patience, the time, the talent, the intelligence and the creativity that will have been necessary to him to realize it. On the other hand, no one can deny that, like any market, the art market is linked to the laws of supply and demand. And everyone knows it, even if everyone pretends to ignore it, the art market is a market maintained artificially by a few major collectors, very powerful galleries, heads of international institutions, a few art critics, and even a handful of artists and the media. All these people, by the power of money or institutions at their disposal, subject the public to the bludgeoning and ideological conditioning of their models. Even the major museums are lagging behind these new prescribers and are no longer the ones that enshrine the true values of art.
Some will judge the position of Forest vain and as showing a deep naivety, the exemplary fight that he leads alone against the Centre Pompidou since years for the transparency on his acquisitions gives him however right. After having succeeded in taking over the Beaubourg fortress for the first time, against all odds, in July 2017, he is now preparing for a new offensive, strengthened by this first victory. A hard-fought victory, which he led in the name of ETHICS alone.
Sign of the times the climate is changing, and even commentators who judge the situation in the United States on the spot and who regularly report on it, tell us that the most important Museums are forced to separate from their most emblematic leaders under pressure from artists, who want to establish a greater ethic in their operations. (See THE ART NEWS PAPERS DAILY N0 319 25/6/2019 French Edition)
The experimental and pedagogical system set up by Fred Forest by the sale of his Invisible Banana, certainly invisible, but already present in the head of each one of us, reveals this unease that begins to contaminate Europe and gives moreover to the artist (that is to say to the artists) the legitimate and moral right to determine henceforth and to them alone the price representing the value of their works, without having to be dependent of the market in anything, and without being victims of a coast, that proves to be finally the result of manipulations of its "influencers". What Arthur Danto calls, it seems to us, with a certain modesty, the... " World of Art"!
Who are these influencers? They are you and me, according to our own notoriety and our ability to act as a guarantor for a person or a cause according to their personal ideology. That is to say, possibly in the art world, any person whose professional or extra-professional functions are credited with a certain knowledge or power, which may or may not itself be monetized, and some of whom will consider, rightly or wrongly, that information and initiatives may one day be beneficial to them ...
To finish, the base price of this work, which the artist offers you today to buy without intermediary at 120.000 $ usd for 108.120 € has therefore been decided alone by the artist, according to his own principles, and may be increased according to offers made until June 2, 2020 at 6:00 p.m., both by French and foreign collectors, provided that a certified guarantee check, representing the total amount increased, is deposited on time at the office of Maitre Eric Le Marec, Bailiff, 54 rue Taitbout, 75009 Paris.
In art, magical thinking always works for those who believe in it strongly enough...
The action pursued here by the artist is very much based on this one... because to sell or not to sell is really not his problem today, and you have understood this perfectly well.... Goodbye!
https://artreview.com/reviews/ara_winter_2017_book_fred_forests_utopia_media_art_and_activism/
To conclude on a note of optimism, I will say that with the end of the world climate that COVI-19 is creating, it is only a drastic accelerator to the crisis that we are experiencing in a latent way. A crisis of a numerical, ecological, climatic, migratory, identity-related and globalist nature.
A crisis in which artists have to regain power if they are a little less cowardly in the face of powers of all kinds, and if they manifest themselves, after all, as "RESISTANTS".
As Gilles Deleuze so aptly put it to Claire Parenet in Alain Boutang's Abécédaire when talking about artists "Creating is resisting" I would add that this is the only way you might be able to change society... and I would add for my part that the world of nature is far too powerful and hermetic for us to have the foolish claim to change it in a sustainable way, but let us at least know how to be in solidarity with each other humans to be able to face it.