Banana Fever

In 2023, a pop-up gallery opened in Moscow, on Taganka—an event not particularly significant for a capital oversaturated with art, were it not for one circumstance: it was constructed entirely out of banana boxes. In two and a half years, Bannana Gallery (*the project’s own spelling) has opened branches in Venice, Barcelona, Krasnodar, Kaliningrad, and Vladivostok, and it seems the list of cities will only keep growing. Lyusya Yangirova spoke with its creator, Arkadi Kotanjyan, about artistic freedom, criticism of institutions, and… bananas.

How did Bannana Gallery begin?

As a child, I used to collect banana boxes, helping my father. My father is an engineer with an impressive track record and awards, but in the 1990s, he was forced to bring fruit from the south and sell it. For example, we would take grapes and pack them into banana boxes, then he would take the fruit to a warehouse in Tula—and from Tula, he would bring back potatoes in sacks and folded banana boxes. I constantly had to assemble and disassemble them.

One of his round trips took about three days, and during that time, I would manage to build whole walls out of the boxes—there were so many of them. One day, an idea came to me: I didn’t have my own space, but I had these walls of boxes, and they themselves could become that very space. I didn’t come up with Bannana Gallery as an artistic project—I came up with it as an act of defiance. I absolutely cannot see myself within the structure of contemporary art: I’m not ready to put together a CV, a portfolio, submit applications, or participate in competitions. That’s not for me at all.

So, is this your rebellion against the institutional system?

Yes, I realized that the world of contemporary art had its doors closed to me. Actually, I think I ended up in it by accident! Towards the end of my studies at the Moscow School of Contemporary Art «Free Workshops», I understood that I didn’t meet the requirements and rules dictated by institutions. The question became: what to do next? I realized I needed my own gallery!

Now it looks like a well-thought-out project, but I came up with Bannana Gallery as a way to stay in the world of contemporary art.

That reminds me of actors who, dissatisfied with directors, decide at some point that they will make their own films, and that those films will be better than the ones they acted in.

Yes, it’s close to that. Bannana Gallery has this concept — it has no doors, no roof. It’s open to everyone! All institutions of contemporary art operate by the same rules all over the world. Their schedules are always booked a year in advance. A pop-up gallery, in this sense, is mobile; it can open quickly. I’m not trying to open a similar institution within stone walls, thinking, ‘Oh, you didn’t accept me, now I’ll show you all!’ I have a completely different idea — to spread Bannana Gallery around the world, so that any artist can use it whenever they want.

That’s generous!

If I get too attached to it, the project will end. You have to let it go at the right time. Our lives are finite; if you never give anything away and just hold on to something, that’s always bad.

But doesn’t that make you its sole owner?

That’s not my goal. I’m an artist; I have other projects too.

When I say “I am an artist,” I somehow feel that I’m not real, as if I’m pretending to be one. I can call myself a researcher.

So it turns out that what unites all these structures is their foundation. And the foundation is the box?

Absolutely, the whole idea of BG is an alternative. It can appear in absolutely any place, and anyone can replicate it. Regular galleries presuppose some kind of construction—you bring it, assemble it, take it away. Recently, I became the president of the Bannana Republic of Art, and galleries were built simultaneously in four Russian cities. They sent me photos—a child took part in creating one of them!

I’ll definitely ask you about the presidency! Tell me, who are these people who picked up on this idea?

Everything connected with BG is some kind of chain of random luck. Initially, I chose Moscow and Vladivostok—as two polar points. In Vladivostok, my former classmate from the Free Workshops, the artist Miloslava Snigar, responded. Then Krasnodar was added, a southern point, the place I’m from. And then later, Kaliningrad. There, I quite by chance connected with the organizers of the “The Sea Inside” festival, and we made a deal literally the day before the date I had chosen.

And what do you think attracts people most to BG, why are they so willing to help and get involved?

When I opened the very first BG in Moscow, on Taganka, I figured—okay, the opening will be at seven in the evening, by eight people will have seen everything and will leave. In the end, it was already completely dark, there was hardly any place to sit, but people were sitting on the asphalt in the dark, hanging out until midnight. My project is very close to Nicolas Bourriaud’s Relational Aesthetics (Relational Aesthetics is an artistic tendency that makes human interactions the main subject of art. A concept introduced by the French historian, curator, and critic Nicolas Bourriaud in an essay he published in 1998 — author’s note), that is, the aesthetics of interaction and participation.

I saw that people felt very relaxed; they came to the opening as if they were in their childhood courtyard.

And nostalgia, of course! Can’t do without it?

Everyone, I’ve noticed, likes banana boxes in general. People always remember their childhood, and those who are older remember the times of shortages in the USSR, when bananas in stores were a rarity. Everyone is surprised and says: we never thought there were so many variations of these boxes and that they are all designed so differently! I see the box itself as a symbol of globalization—the global south trades with the global north. But the boxes themselves remain invisible. We only pay attention to their contents—the bananas. And I made these boxes visible. Sometimes it happens like this: I go to the market, see some rare box that I don’t have yet, and I have to beg for it, exchange it for another one. And people don’t understand and ask: what’s in it for you?

Do you keep any records, do you write them down?

No, unfortunately, I rely on my memory: I see one—bam!—and I don’t have that kind yet! I had one specimen that I accidentally had to part with at Archstoyanie—on the bottom of the box, there’s an image of the ocean, with a shell, an anchor… And I think: what kind of imagination must the person who drew this have—a banana at the bottom of the ocean!

And I imagine that a banana is such a universal symbol that can be anywhere, even at the bottom of the ocean!

How important is it for you that exhibitions take place inside BG?

Even though I came up with it for myself, it’s very important to me that exhibitions happen. The second BG was at Fabrika (Center for Creative Industries «Fabrika»). There was a full-fledged exhibition, 10 artists participated—and I wasn’t on that list!

I don’t have a goal to exhibit at every possible opportunity.

And who were these artists?

They were selected by the curator and artist Eldar Ganeev based on an open call. There was a funny story. One of the artists didn’t make the selection, but she came with an intervention—she bought a small jar of horseradish at a nearby store, came in, and placed it in the corner: “There’s your answer, curator!”

I want to ask about your team. Who helps you?

It’s always different people who simply like the project, often random people who care. For example, after the galleries had already opened in other cities, a girl completely unknown to me, Anna Galchinskaya, built a gallery on the campus of the Far Eastern University in Vladivostok. That’s how contagious the idea was!

You already have a decent list of locations, take the Archstoyanie festival, for instance.

Yes, and both times I was invited there as a cultural institution. It’s a paradox—I usually shy away from that word, but I never position myself against them. I myself am from Slavyansk-on-Kuban, where there are no galleries or contemporary art centers, and there are many such cities in Russia—I think the majority. And with my instructions, anyone can build one for themselves. Maybe it’s a utopia. I’m disgusted by the elitism embedded in the concept of an “institution,” and my gallery is anti-elitist. Being in the public space, it is accessible to everyone.

I don’t want to say it’s a site-specific, processual project, so I just say: this is the freest gallery in the world.

Tell me about your Western experience, about Venice.

I became a finalist in the Art Laguna Prize competition. They gave me a lot of space, it was all in the Arsenale. They brought many boxes—and they assembled them themselves. Several thousand people came to the opening. But the evening turned into a huge disappointment for me. I remembered my previous intervention in Venice: back then I had no budget, no support, and fewer boxes. But here I was in the Arsenale, a winner, everything official. People came to the opening and assessed everything with very serious expressions. I watched them: no one even smiled! Later I realized they were viewing BG from the perspective of a commercial project. It upset me that they took the project so seriously.

Let’s talk about your presidency. That happened quite recently, right?

On October 25, 2025, I created the Bannana Republic of Art and, by my first decree, proclaimed myself president of emptiness. For me, this is, of course, self-irony. Because anyone can declare themselves president of anything.

Should citizens have documents?

The essence of the passport I came up with is that every citizen is its co-author. They choose a cover from any part of a banana box, send it to me, and I send them back the finished document. They glue in their own 4×5 cm photo themselves, since the size of a banana box is 40 by 50 cm.

Has anyone received passports yet?

The first participants will receive them—in Kaliningrad, Krasnodar, and Vladivostok. I’m waiting for their covers now. In terms of citizenship, we are like-minded people. I call us a global tribe of guerrilla artists.

What powers does the president of the Bannana Republic have?

Anyone can approach me and build their own gallery. So, I need to show and promote this by example. In my state, citizens can have just one box or a dozen. Of course, the idea of my state is largely utopian. When I was applying for a visa to Italy (as it happened, I went abroad for the first time in my early forties), I was extremely surprised by the bureaucracy involved in gathering documents. I realized that in my state, there would be no land, no territory, no army, no money. It will only have a territory of the spirit and like-minded people. Or, as I call them, co-authors.

Does the republic have any laws? Have you formulated them somehow?

We are all united by a love of freedom. In my manifesto, it’s written: our capital is any place where a wall of banana boxes stands. I want artists all over the world to be able to build themselves a gallery—those who are banned or those who have no opportunity to organize an exhibition somewhere. And I will continue to be the president of emptiness and joyfully proclaim this!

Where do you see BG in 5 years?

My main drawback is that I completely ignore social media and don’t maintain them at all. Right now, I’m getting an education as a curator. I want to understand how the project can be spread so that it lives without my active participation. I want there to be more enthusiasts—I even admit that they might rename BG to something else. So that they don’t continue my project, but create their own.

We thank for the provided photos: Miloslava Snigar, Taron Arutyunyan, Maxim Grachev, Giorgia Zantedeschi

Translation: Alex Karamba