“El Puesto de Don Lucho” is a fruit and vegetables stand of cardboard that chilean artist Don Lucho built for a street fair in Santiago de Chile in July, 2010. The stand was inside the fair next to other stands of real fruit and vegetables. Don Lucho sold his cardboard fruit from 9:00 am to 14:30pm, the same time the real fair was on:
“I sold a lot of cardboard fruits. The people reactions were different, some were angry because the fruit was fake, others thought it was a hidden camera show, other people laughed. A lot of people asked many questions like what is this fruit for or if there was real fruit inside the cardboard fruit? The real fruit sellers got very angry and started shouting: Stop buying cardboard fruit! It’s not real fruit!”—Don Lucho
The work is about questioning the visual value of objects and the obviousness of them in their own context. Based on peoples reactions I’d say that this little experiment was quite a success. As you can see in the close up images all cardboard fruit are beautifully hand crafted and I could see them being sold in fancy art stores. But I’m sure, selling the fruit there would be a lot more boring. If I would have had the chance to be at that fair I would have definitely bought some of the fruit!
Images via Don Lucho.