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Banana Republic is Gavin Turk’s playful homage to the history of the banana in art, depicted by artists including Wayne Thiebaud, Andy Warhol, and more recently Maurizio Cattelan at Art Basel Miami (2019). The banana is a recurring motif in Turk’s paintings and sculpture and a continuation of the artist’s presentation of ordinary objects in such a way as to make us rethink them. This provocative Pop-style image of an acid yellow banana against a shocking turquoise background is described by the artist as a “minimal still life, abandoned by the rest of the fruit bowl.” For Turk, the banana symbolises an exotic and suggestive symbol of global trade, logistics, markets and power, as well as gender and sexuality.
