Year of the banana?

The farcicality should be obvious to everyone, but artists and art writers can be persuasive about the 'meaning' of such work, laying it at the altar of high art

Art can range from the sacred to the sacrilegious — and has often done — but it is a matter of time before what was considered provocative is deemed acceptable. It can trigger protests, and the last decades have seen Indian artists being subjected to ridiculous acts of censorship. That absurdity can test limits, but what happens when the art becomes absurd instead? Not banal, not mediocre, but plain insulting to the viewing public.

By now everyone knows about the banana on the wall that Paris-based Sarah Andelman paid $120,000 (Rs 85 lakh) for, with a second edition snapped up by