"Lena Stringari, the Guggenheim’s chief conservator, said the instructions will be quite easy to follow and are quite complete in addressing questions like how often to change bananas..."

"... (7 to 10 days) and where to affix them ('175 cm above ground'). 'Of all the works I have to confront, this is probably one of the simplest,' Ms. Stringari said. 'It’s duct tape and a banana,' she added. The conservation of conceptual art is not always so straightforward for museums increasingly asked to preserve works made from of all kinds of ephemeral substances, like food. How does one care for a scale model of an Algerian city made out of couscous? A sculpture made of interlocking tortillas? Fruit stuck on a coatrack? (All works the Guggenheim has shown.)... 'Once you think art is an idea and the material is secondary then it does not matter if that material lasts for a long time,”' said Melissa Chiu, director of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden at the Smithsonian in Washington. The Hirshhorn has its own conservation specialists who tend to art created from 'time-based' materials that degrade. 'A lot of them are really challenging. The museum’s role in a way is to preserve the work forever.'"

From "It’s a Banana. It’s Art. And Now It’s the Guggenheim’s Problem/Ephemeral works of art, like Maurizio Cattelan’s creation out of fruit, can often pose conservation challenges for the museums that have them" (NYT).

Highly rated comment: "This type of work is infuriating. It puts the rest of us creative types in the awkward position of defending support for the arts when this is what that support is being used for. Sure, in better times, the conversation sparked by the 'work' has value, but the tone deaf absurdity of the thing itself plus its maintenance in this time of national trauma is a bit grotesque."

Maybe work that causes you to think deeply about time and decay is especially valuable during a national trauma.