Provocation on canvas

THE VIRAL BANANA ARTWORK Artist Maurizio Cattelan's Comedian-a real banana duct-taped to a wall-took everyone by surprise when it debuted in 2019, questioning the boundaries of art and commerce. Five years later, in November, the artwork sold for a whopping $6.2 million at Sotheby's

541 million years ago, it was a carbon molecule that combined with a hydrogen to form an elemental hydrocarbon, the genesis of life, as we know it, on earth. Carbon is life. Today, carbon is also death.

And at a time when it has become a dirty word, it is also imperative for us to be reminded that we all are essentially carbon and the element is the backbone of everything that symbolises life and energy. Conceptualised by the Science Gallery in Bengaluru, an exhibit titled Carbon, at Serendipity Arts Festival, immediately pulls a science lover, and enlightens even those who understand little what the fuss is all about.

The ideas in question are of a consumerist society, wasteful consumption, the excessive use of fossil fuels, the ubiquity of plastic, and the inevitability of it all.