Year-ender 2024: What all in the year made the art world go bananas!

Dec 31, 2024 09:18 AM IST

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From Banky's animal series to Anish Kapoor topping the Hurun India Art List, here's a recap to 2024's art highlights alongside the famous banana strokes.

No matter how much AI takes over headlines, the visual art in its OG form, sense and sensibility will always continue to cause a stir in the human mind. With that aesthetic belief, here’s making a note of almost everything that art connoisseurs will associate the year 2024 with.

Artist Anish Kapoor, an artwork titled Comedian, and animal series by street artist Banksy are some of the topics that got much talked about in the art world in 2024.

Monkeying around

Chinese billionaire Justin Sun ate up Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan's artwork Comedian, that is the duct-taped banana that he bought at an auction.

It was literally just a banana duct-taped to a wall that was expected to fetch an $1.5 million ( ₹12.68 crore) at a Sotheby’s auction in November. Instead, this artwork went under the hammer for an unbelievable $6.2 million ( ₹ 52.34 crore) and thus began the uproar! Titled Comedian, this piece by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, has certainly received an unprecedented viral fame ever since its first appearance at Art Basel Miami Beach in 2019. What proves this further is the fact that the Chinese billionaire Justin Sun – who made the winning bid – ate the banana during a press conference later since he desired to “become part” of the history. On a grim note, the fruit vendor Shah Alam (74) who had sold the banana for just 35 cents ( ₹29), felt the joke was made at his expense.

Royal mess up?

This vivid red portrait of King Charles III was created by artist Jonathan Yeo.

In May, the first official portrait of King Charles III, since his coronation, was unveiled at the Buckingham Palace, UK. It showed him in his full Welsh Guards uniform, in a red-hued oil on canvas measuring 8ft 6” by 6ft 6”, and painted by Jonathan Yeo. It was badly received by many and on the social media some described it as a visual representation of the massacre cause by the colonisers.

Top honours

London-based Indian-origin artist Anish Kapoor yet again topped the Hurun India Art List this year. He ranked the highest ( ₹79.9 crore) among the most successful Indian artists alive, for the sixth consecutive year. The list ranked the top 50 living Indian artists according to the annual sales of their works sold at public auctions as of January 1, 2024. Two artists who made significant strides on the list were Paresh Maity, who emerged in the top 10 for the first time, and Thota Vaikuntam who reclaimed the ninth spot.

All’s fair

Modernist Tyeb Mehta's artwork Falling Bird.

The 15th India Art Fair (IAF), held in January in Delhi, featured its highest number of exhibitors so far, counted at 109. Among the exhibits was Falling Bird – a large-scale 1999 painting by iconic modernist Tyeb Mehta – on public view for the first time in more than two decades. Vadehra Art Gallery sold it for a price in line with its auction results that were reportedly more than US$1.8 million. But that’s not all for come 2025 and IAF will debut in Mumbai!

For environment sake

Activists from environmental group Riposte Alimentaire hurled soup at the Mona Lisa, in January. In the Netherlands, three Belgian climate activists targeted Johannes Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring and escaped unpunished in October. In November, some young demonstrators attacked Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers, with tomato soup, and got sentenced to two years and 20 months of imprisonment. Is such vandalism of art acceptable for Nature's sake?

Beloved Banksy

This artwork by street artist Banksy was the ninth one to release in nine days, and depicted a gorilla releasing animals on the front of a shutter outside the London Zoo. (Photo: AFP)

In early August, the elusive street artist Banksy’s works themed on animals began to appear across London. A mountain goat, two elephants, three monkeys and a howling wolf on a satellite dish are some of animals that comprised this list. His work that’s usually known to be a commentary on the socio-political issues, left many pondering the meaning behind this nine-day series, as well as the mystery behind these getting stolen.

Trashed

Once American painter Ad Reinhardt had said that ‘Art is too serious to be taken seriously’. Guess that’s what happened when in October an artwork got “mistakenly” trashed by an elevator technician in LAM Museum, the Netherlands. This work titled All The Good Times We Spent Together, was created by French artist Alexandre Lavet. He had hand-painted it to depict two empty beer cans. Let’s just assume that the lifelike image of empty beer cans caused all the confusion!

Indian-origin artist wins Turner Prize

Jasleen Kaur was awarded the Turner Prize 2024 at Tate Britain, in London, this year.(Photo: AP)

At 38, Jasleen Kaur was the youngest nominee at the 40th anniversary of the Turner Prize this year. But, she won it alongwith a cash reward of £25,000! The Indian-origin Scottish artist won the award for her exhibition, Alter Altar, which reflects on plurality, personal as well as political themes.

In memorium

Renowned artist Gogi Saroj Pal (79) breathed her last this year in January. Padma Bhushan A Ramachandran passed away at 89, in February. This December, Padma Shri Jodhaiya Bai (86), renowned for Baiga tribal art from Madhya Pradesh, passed away after a prolonged illness. But it was the untimely death of street artist Hanif Kureshi, at the mere age of 41, that shocked everyone in September. More recently, the art community in Delhi is reeling under the news of losing art collector-curator Siddhartha Tagore.