Said Kane Powell, author of the petition described in "Why Do People Want Jeff Bezos to Buy and Eat the Mona Lisa?/An online petition that started as a joke has gone viral, becoming a kind of digital performance art piece all of its own" (NYT).
This article is illustrated with a photo of Jeff Bezos standing next to a portrait of Jeff Bezos. I would rather see closeups of Jeff Bezos and the Mona Lisa side by side, with Bezos looking as much like Lisa as possible. My slapdash effort:
Must I go back to the article? Powell's joke is explained pedantically. He's calling attention to "the absurdity of massive amounts of accumulated wealth." Oh, really? We're told the Mona Lisa isn't even up for sale, but if it were, what would it cost, and what would stop the buyer from destroying it? And what is it even made of? Tuna fish?
I swear I wrote that last question — a joke, based on the previous post — before I read this paragraph in the Mona Bezos article:
More recently, in 2019 at Art Basel Miami Beach, the New York artist David Datuna ate the banana in Maurizio Cattelan’s buzzy and high-priced “Comedian.” (He said that “it tasted like $120,000.”) Mr. Datuna also claimed that it wasn’t an act of vandalism, but a performance. “This is the first time where an artist eats the concept of another artist,” he said.
The tuna!
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2 comments:
Temujin writes:
Bezos, the Mona Lisa, and Tuna.
What does not belong?
And what's up with Tuna today? I'm getting hungry. Stop it.
Bob Boyd writes:
If Bezos did eat the Mona Lisa, what would the resulting stool be worth? Hard to say, but it wouldn't be zero.
Would it be art? Would it go back into the museum?
Or would it end up as a roadside attraction outside of a National Park somewhere, tourists looking down, "You know it kinda looks like it's still smiling, don't it? No, I'm serious. Come around over here, baby. There. See?"
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