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Bananas

Alex Abramovich · The Velvet Underground v. Warhol

The peelable banana that Andy Warhol designed for The Velvet Underground & Nico was a dry-run, of sorts, for the unzippable jeans he designed for the Rolling Stones' Sticky Fingers – an early attempt, on the artist's part, to answer the question: 'Hey, is that a giant cock on your rock and roll album cover?'

Warhol's banana was perfectly ripe; maybe a bit rotten. Its peeled flesh was an almost fluorescent pink. Among other things, the banana was Warhol's rejoinder to Magritte’s pipe-that-was-not-a-pipe. Like Magritte’s pipe, it's popular with consumers. Today, you seethe banana on tote bags, T-shirts, key-rings, baby bibs, duvet covers, cigarette lighters, athletic shoes and skateboard decks. Warhol was a teetotaller, but in 2002, a slightly modified version ofthe image appeared in advertisements for Absolut Vodka. And in 2011, when Incase, a California tech company, launched a Warhol line of iPhone and iPad cases, computer sleeves and shoulder bags, the banana was given pride of place. ‘We wanted the first release to be definitively Warhol,’ a representative of the Warhol Foundation explained. ‘So we went with the banana.’

It took Lou Reed and John Cale of the Velvet Underground some time to register their objections. When they did, in January 2012, it was in the form of a lawsuit against the foundation, which had licensed the banana to Incase. The musicians asked for damages based on their own, trademark-based claims to the image, which they called ‘a symbol, truly an icon, of the Velvet Underground'. Confusingly, they also said that the image belonged in the public domain. Part of the suit was later dismissed; last week, the parties agreed to a confidential settlement.

Any number of jokes presented themselves, about apples, bananas, the lawsuit itself – a tug-of-war over banana peels. (In 1981, Apple Computer settled a lawsuit brought by the Beatles’ holding company, Apple Corps; as one of the conditions, Apple Computer agreed not to enter the music business.) One was also reminded that the Warhol Foundation, which does a great deal of good for working artists, can come off as a bit of a bully.

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Comments

  • 4 June 2013 at 1:52pm
    Timothy Rogers says:
    This is pretty funny – the dazed and decrepit in combat with the ripe and the rotten, one branch of commerce (rock-n-roll) going into the lists with another (branding and sales, sales sales!). Reed and the VU folks (ahem, old folks) have made no progress in clear thinking (or expression), so it’s hardly surprising that they confuse “intellectual property” with the public domain. Once the cutting edge of “revolutionary” pop-art – both music and painting – these ancient crones and their testators point out the ludicrous pretensions of an earlier era that keeps getting reborn, a veritable revenge of the cretins. In point of fact they should all be bowing in reverence to their unacknowledged sire, Walt Disney, pioneer of “Imagineering”. Thank you old geezers for fueling the engines of parody.
  • 4 June 2013 at 6:46pm
    Ubique says:
    One day Timothy, if you eat your leafy greens, you may enjoy "old geezer" status. Chronological age is irrelevant to stoking the grimy parodic furnace, as you so ably demonstrate.
  • 5 June 2013 at 1:29am
    Timothy Rogers says:
    Ah, dear Eknm, I've enjoyed that status for some time,as I fast approach my 70th year this Fall. But then I didn't like the poseurs the first time around when they were my age-mates decades ago. Stick with the history, follow the money, and discard any illusions you might harbor about the art-commerce nexus. You'll feel like you just ate some leafy greens yourself.