On November 25, banana brand Chiquita lit up Instagram with an eye-catching yellow story, offering the chance to win free tickets to Art Basel Miami. The deal is simple: share your email address and get two day passes. The next day, the company released a banana with a sticker that read “Proud Partner of Art Basel Miami Beach.” as author banana crazean award-winning digital humanities project about the monoculture of bananas in contemporary Latin American art, we were blown away. The Chiquita draw felt like a gimmick—a cruel joke.
Chiquita Brands International (formerly United Fruit Company) has been implicated in numerous cases of labor rights violations, environmental degradation and the overthrow of democratic governments in Latin America since the early 20th century. As scholars of contemporary Latin American art and bananas, we feel compelled to address the irony of Chiquita supporting a fair that is deeply rooted in Latin American art—from its location in Miami to its many Latin American galleries, collections home and artist.
Just months ago, the judge ordered the company to pay $3,830 after the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida found it liable for financing paramilitary killings in Colombia between 1997 and 2004. million dollars. Victims’ families. The company is credited by some with shaping the 20th century multinational corporate model and pioneering modern marketing and public relations, and has earned the “octopus(“The Octopus”) has been controversial for the extent of its power, especially in Central America and the Caribbean. Banana companies have been behind a series of violent incidents throughout the last century, including the infamous 1928 Colombian Banana Banana The massacre and the 1954 coup against then-President Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala So Chiquita’s whitewashing of art as an official sponsor of Art Basel Miami Beach is as shocking as it is stomach-churning. .
Chiquita’s sponsorship promises to bring “lighthearted fun and good nutrition” to the fair, according to the fair’s official list of partners. art network. The company told the outlet it was to celebrate “the long-standing connection between bananas and the art world” The Art Newspaper. (Although still listed as an “official partner,” Chiquita’s dedicated page on Art Basel Miami Beach’s website has been removed in recent days. In response to our inquiry, a spokesperson for the show said that the decision “is incompatible with Chiquita’s Kita co-operated to limit promotions on the Art Basel website due to high in-person demand.”)
One Chiquita Instagram ad even features a duct-taped banana, calling it “iconic, with a little bit of duct tape.” Here we go again – just two weeks after Sotheby’s auctioned off Maurizio Cattelan’s The Comedian (2019) for millions of dollars, the spotlight is back on the white European artist. But what about the hundreds of Latin American artists who actually used banana imagery to fight Chiquita colonial rule?
Often referred to as the “Capital of Latin America,” Miami has been home to wealthy individuals from the Spanish-speaking Americas for decades, particularly those from the music, film, and arts industries. In the field of contemporary art, this bridge between the United States and Latin America was solidified with the opening of the Pérez Art Museum in Miami in 1984. As we explained in our recent opinion column in Columbia Digital Media empty chairThe number of artists, galleries, collectors and contemporary art dealers at Art Basel Miami Beach continues to grow. Two-thirds of the galleries at this year’s December show are from “the Americas,” and the fair is described as “the leading global platform for discovering art from Latin American countries.”
Given the show’s strong Latin American character, Art Basel Miami Beach deserves to be considered a multinational brand beyond the Chiquita. Instead, it should highlight the powerful legacy of Latino and Latino art and publicly condemn the company’s practices. Did Art Basel Miami Beach know that Luis Camnitzer started a hilarious campaign on Change.org in 2016 to remove the name of the Republican Party after Donald Trump was elected President of the United States? “Banana Republicans” instead? Is Chiquita aware of Rachelle Mozman Solano’s fantastical video in which United Fruit founder Minor Cooper Keith is infected with Panama disease, as is the case with banana monocultures around the world? Have the show organizers seen the 2008 show? labor day A series by Andrea Chung, who currently has a solo show at the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami, in which she removes farmers from vintage plantation photos to give them a day off? Is anyone familiar with Nicolás Dumit Estévez’s brilliant queer Latin parody of “Chiquito Banano”? Shouldn’t Miami’s map be redesigned as a banana, as in Dominican Yorkist artist Yunior Chiqui Mendonza’s poignant “Banaan Hatan,” featuring the fruit? Is New York City reimagined?
Chiquita has long profited at the expense of Latin American people, and now it is profiting again by promoting its brand at major art fairs with deep ties to the region. This is unacceptable—a company with blood on its hands has no place in the art world, let alone one that is blatantly associated with Latin American culture. If you’re planning to attend Art Basel Miami Beach 2024, here are three ways to deal with Chiquita’s photo ops, sales pitches, and banana sample carts: Follow Latino and Latino artists and galleries at the show; if you’re craving a snack, Choose fair trade bananas; and protest creatively. Get inspired by artists like Karlo Andrei Ibarra, Jean-François Boclé and Tonico Lemos Auad and get your message engraved on a banana peel.
