Wall of Bananas

how long til it turns into a rotting, swirling mass of flies?

that's gonna be one goopy, smelly mess.

Here's another waste of good food:
Jan Frabre: "De benen van de rede ontveld"
(translated: The legs of reason unskinned)
http://www.angelos.be/nl/works_picts.php?id=15

ok ok. i get gingerbread houses, snowman faces, using popcorn for garland on the xmas tree, and various other small food contributions to art. but sometimes it's just a waste of food!

Very cool, but what a waste of food.

Having studied Stefan's design work over the years, he always pushes the idea of what is possible. He is one of my favorite designers, but this is just stupid.

I imagine all the praise he is constantly receiving has gone to his head, and so many "yes men" around him, any idea that pops in to his head is possible and funded.

Silly.

So, he's a guy with no talent trying to be clever. How many hungry people could have been fed with those bananas he's wasting? How many young kids are going to be getting up in the morning and going to school without a meal in their belly because their family can't afford the food? How many homeless are sorting through a garbage bin trying to find scraps of food?

Sorry, this is not art. I spent twelve years in art school and I got really sick of these people pulling stunts like this which are completely meaningless. He needs to pull his head out of his own ass and do something that will actually mean something to someone else, not shove a waste of food into everyones faces some of whom might be starving.

Yeah, Jennifer's right. If he wants to make a statement about hunger or bananas then paint a picture of some bananas or whatever. Just wasting a bunch of bananas is fruitless.

When will people ever learn? "Art" is whatever artists say it is and you better not dispute them.

What the heck. Thats such a waste. Feed the poor kids in Africa with that rather than wasting it on something you call art. You would gain a better reputation too.

haha - fruitless. I love it.

7200 bananas on a wall,
7200 bananas.
If one of those bananas should happen to fall,
7199 bananas on a wall.

Okay, let's all cry about the starving kids in Africa - which has absolutely nothing to do with this picture - somewhere else.

This is a very cool picture - very neat.

I wonder would happen if the artists who made the Apple, Peach and now Banana sculptures/art worked together? Would we end up with a new finagled fruit salad?

Couldn't they have invited everyone to take one banana home with them thus creating a new work of art every time somebody removed a banana? It would have been interactive and no fruit need be wasted

Actually Jerse it has a lot to do with kids starving on the other side of the world. We're all connected, what we do to one other person resonates around the globe. By wasting this much food the artist is making a bold statement by saying that one, he doesn't care about people who don't have enough to eat; and two, that conspicuous consumption is acceptable.

This isn't a cool picture, it's a mirror of the Western attitude that wasting resources is perfectly alright.

When do the swarms of fruit flies descend upon the exhibit?

East Germans saw bananas once a year at Christmas, and even then it was a rare & expensive treat. They went crazy with delight at the easy availability of "Südfrüchte" after the Wall went down. I was there and saw it. I can't look at this stupid smear without thinking of that. Paint a freakin' wall of bananas of you want one.

that's gonna be a mush of shit in a week...

I find it ironic, that all the goodie two shoe-ers feel free to yell at stupid artists for "wasting food" (and for such a tiny amount on a world-wide scale) yet fail to attack the source of the problem.

Why aren't all you "save the world from itself" types yelling at the people so stupid, that although they don't have enough food to feed themselves, continue to breed more and more mouths to feed?

Oh yeah, that's right. Having kids is a totally private and personal decision. Feeding them on the other hand seems to be everyone ELSE'S responsibility (especially the food artists of the world and the rich people who waste their money on AV systems).

Please. It's not like if he hadn't have bought the bananas the nice fruit people would've given them to the starving African children.

I think it's damned cool looking, and I bet it's really awesome in person.

Nice.

I'm baffled by people who get riled up about artists wasting food when they use it in their art. Food is a commodity, like any other: the artist bought it with money, just like some other artist would buy paint, or stone, or studio time. So why don't people complain in the same way that money spent on paint, stone, or studio time could have been used to feed kids?

If you don't like the art, that's fine. But getting hung up on food that was "wasted" is a little peculiar.

@Jennifer:

Even though you thought this piece was nothing more than an empty stunt, it elicited responses from you that referenced poverty, homelessness, starvation, and global economic justice. Are you sure it didn’t “mean something to someone else”?