The quote by Thomas Tusser ‘A fool and his money are soon parted.’ can be paraphrased to ‘A fool and his banana are soon parted’. The art of this ‘theft’ is a bit bent, a performance art act.

Although it’s not an area that I know much of, Performance Art is even more confusing than abstract art. In a recent example of performance art, a banana was taped to a wall and a wealthy French collector bought it for $120,000, but another performance artist then took it down and ate it. Which of these two is the true artist or are they even artists?

Art should challenge but it shouldn’t be a confusing joke and certainly not such an expensive one. Is it unreasonable to think that art should contribute something that makes the world a better place? It looks like the art world has truly slipped up on this one although the art piece can be easily recreated with five cents worth of tape and a one dollar banana although it must be an organic banana one presumes.

Perhaps $120,000 of colouring pencils could be given away to children so that they could develop their own art works.

Dennis Fitzgerald — Melbourne, Australia