Adam Stone: Fallen Fruit Adam Stone: Fallen Fruit

The artwork Fallen Fruit by artist Adam Stone features a peeled banana with a skull face located on Rose Street in Fitzroy.

Fallen Fruit by Adam Stone uses iconography, symbolism and narrative to address a major theme in his practice, that permeates every aspect contemporary society-hubris.

The sculpture directly references the 1970s phenomenon of oversized, kitsch roadside objects - the big banana, pavlova, koala, submarine, merino - constructed to seduce travellers and passersby to stop for a photo opportunity and increase tourism and revenue in regional highway towns.

Fallen Fruit seeks to both engage with and subvert this tradition. The work does this by employing the symbol of the banana, anthropomorphised through the inclusion of a human skull, a memento mori to meditate on our Western tendencies towards unsustainable desires and excess. Using absurdity and humour as an entry point, this oversized pop object reveals the 'infallibility' of the super-human figure as social myth.

This work seeks to engage with the ancient tradition of public art serving as a medium to tell stories, communicate beliefs and provide warnings. In contrast in contemporary society, public statues are largely monumental and commemorative.

The sculpture also engages with Banana Art, a lowbrow internet subculture where practitioners work against the temporary nature of the material and document their efforts online. Here, the large sculpture, weighted by art history as well as its sheer physicality, stands in contrast to ephemeral banana carving. The work therefore acts as an absurd warning about our human compulsion towards an excessive drive (as in the myth of Icarus) that reinforces the danger of hubris. The final work is a simulacra pastiche of art-historical milieu with a post-internet nod.

By revisiting and subverting this tradition of oversized sculpture, the artist hopes that Fallen Fruit can become a welcome spectacle for tourists and locals as well as an invitation to reflect on our human tendencies towards unsustainable excess, a warning for the future.

Image: Adam Stone ' Fallen Fruit' 2021. Photo: Adam Stone.

A council in Melbourne's inner north is resisting pressure to sell a controversial sculpture of an anthropomorphic banana after an on-air bid by British-American comedian John Oliver.

The comedian offered to buy the artwork, titled Fallen Fruit, for $10 and a $10,000 donation to a local food bank during a segment of his HBO show Last Week Tonight which aired overnight.

Oliver also offered to make a $5000 donation to Australia Zoo's John Oliver Koala Chlamydia Ward and send a sculpture of a giant alligator showing his middle finger to replace the banana. The alligator sculpture was created as a prop for a 2017 segment of the show about replacing Confederate symbols in the US following white nationalist rallies in Charlottesville.

Yarra City Council bought Fallen Fruit, by Melbourne artist Adam Stone, for $22,000 as part of a $100,000 grant from the Transport Accident Commission.

The artwork, which features a 1.8-metre peeled banana with a skull face, attracted mixed reviews from the public after it was placed on Rose Street in Fitzroy last November. The council was forced to remove the statue and put it into storage within weeks of its installation after vandals tried to decapitate it with a saw.

" Since the citizens of Melbourne seem to think that their money has been wasted, I might have a solution for you because I will gladly take that banana off your hands,'' Oliver told viewers.

Offering the alligator as a replacement, Oliver said: " What could be more Australian than a dangerous animal telling anyone who comes near it to go f---k themselves?''

Oliver then gave the council a week to respond.

Yarra City Council Mayor Sophie Wade said the council wasn't ready to part with the sculpture, which was " recuperating' ' after the decapitation attempt.

Stone was contacted for comment.

This article is from the June 8 issue of The Age Digital Edition. To subscribe, visit "https://www.theage.com.au".
Marta Pascual Juanola Matilda Finn

❊ Address ❊

 ⊜  Corner Rose St and Brunswick St Fitzroy  View Map

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❊ Web Links ❊

➼ Adam Stone: Fallen Fruit 

➼ yarracity.vic.gov.au






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