A banana taped to a wall and a solid‑gold toilet have recently fetched multi‑million‑dollar sums, turning simple objects into headline‑making symbols of a market that often feels more like a spectacle than a conversation about aesthetics.

At this year’s Venice Biennale the absurdity took on a literal, immersive form. In the Austrian pavilion, Florentina Holzinger hung naked inside a bell, rang it hourly and invited visitors to urinate into a purification tank that floated a woman, a performance that shouted “I live in your piss.” The Greek pavilion, designed by Andreas Angelidakis, resembled a neon‑lit “kink dungeon” called Escape Room, riffing on Plato’s cave to critique populism and online misinformation. Meanwhile the Belgian pavilion staged exhausted performers crawling, drumming, and shouting in a ritual that claimed to explore human connection.

Curator Kader Attia, who will helm next year’s Kochi‑Muziris Biennale, argues that such works risk alienating audiences when they are wrapped in opaque concept notes. He stresses that art should be inclusive, building a bridge between the work and its environment so that the public, not the market, becomes the true maker of meaning.

The market, however, often rewards shock value. Maurizio Cattelan’s banana piece—Comedian—sold for $6.2 million in 2024, while his solid‑gold toilet fetched $12 million a year later. Damien Hirst’s 22‑ton shark in formaldehyde still commands eight‑figure prices. Attia warns that conflating art with its peripheral market mechanisms obscures the possibility of genuine innovation.

Attia’s own story—growing up in a multicultural Parisian neighbourhood, absorbing a kaleidoscope of languages, smells, and rituals—illustrates his belief that anyone can develop an eye for art. He sees biennales as meeting grounds for diverse worlds, a place where absurdity might finally be anchored in shared experience rather than fleeting headlines.

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