Value-add, valuation, in startup or art

Valuation, whether of a startup or a work of art, can seem to be a slippery thing. Take the 1917 sculpture by Marcel Duchamp, 'Fountain.' It is 'simply' a urinal placed out of its usual context that's considered a 20th c. avant-garde masterpiece, a 1964 replica of which is housed in London's Tate Modern. Earlier this week, artist Maurizio Cattelan's installation art, 'Comedian,' sold for $5.2 mn. Like Duchamp, who had stated that his 'readymade sculpture' was 'everyday objects raised to the dignity of a work of art by the artist's act of choice,' Cattelan's creation can be seen as just a banana duct-taped to a wall. As with inventions, innovations and creations that catch value regardless of how 'banal' they may seem, 'Comedian' caught value after cryptocurrency entrepreneur Justin Sun bought it at the Sotheby's auction. On Friday, in arguably his own act of performance art, Sun ate the banana in 'Comedian'.

While some have decried the discrepancy between the price of the final product and price of the duct tape and banana used-which NYT traced to a fruit stall in Manhattan bought by Cattelan for less than a dollar, and which the newspaper tried to turn into a 'filthy lucre vs honest hard work' narrative by quoting the fruitseller as saying, 'I am a poor man, I have never had this kind of money; I have never seen this kind of money'-the intangible value addition is real in its execution, disruptive force and iconic-iconoclastic chutzpah.

Justin Sun's comparison of conceptual art such as 'Comedian' to decentralised blockchain tech and non-fungible token (NFT) art - in which most of its objects and ideas exist as IP and on the internet, as opposed to something physical-is apt. While most people find it hard to think of any innovation having value way beyond the sum of its parts, the fact that 'Comedian' is much more than a banana duct-taped to the wall that has 'gestalted' into multi-millionaire-dollar art under an artist's vision underlines the true importance of 'value-add'. Scoff at it at your own expense.