Gavin Turk, Giraffe, 2021

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painted bronze

18 x 20.5 x 25 cm
7 1/8 x 8 1/8 x 9 7/8 inches

'You're avin’ a laugh’. The cockney rhyming slang of the title uses the linguistic sensibility of Magritte to stop us in our tracks. This is not a giraffe, it’s a...

'You're avin’ a laugh’. The cockney rhyming slang of the title uses the linguistic sensibility of Magritte to stop us in our tracks. This is not a giraffe, it’s a banana - stuck to the wall with silver gaffer tape and now at a point of decompositional stasis.

However it is not a banana either - infact it is painted bronze trompe l’oeil, resembling a black overripe banana with silver daubed bronze tape thrown up like graffiti. The banana is already a symbol, of both the male as well as the primitive, as well as the skin being a classic comedic trope. This iteration of a banana is a detournment of Comedian by Maurizio Cattelan. This was the title of small edition of real bananas crudely stuck to the wall of an art fair with silver tape, sold at record prices for an ephemeral quip, becoming an art world generated meme.

On the inner curve of the banana, is a Rainforest alliance sticker, a picture of a cute Amazonian tree frog - alluding to the forests which are being cut down and replaced by single crop banana plantations, to feed privileged consumer appetites. This decaying cornocupia seen over time, has a not so cute logistical economy.

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Gavin Turk United Kingdom, b. 1967