This Student Left a Random Pineapple in a Gallery and Passed It Off as 'Art'

From sperm-glazed dough to edible human heads to a replica of Times Square made out of cheese, there is no shortage of artists utilizing food to express themselves creatively—with varying degrees of success and pretentiousness. In a reversal of that trend, last week, a student at Aberdeen's Robert Gordon University (RGU) managed to dupe a campus art gallery into thinking that a grocery store fruit was a work of art.

While there is no denying the thorny, leafy, tropical beauty of a pineapple, it hardly requires any artistic ability to buy one and place it on a table. But that's exactly what RGU student Ruairi Gray did in a prank that ascended beyond mere humor and became its very own commentary on the arbitrary nature of modern art.

It started out innocently enough. "We bought the pineapple as a joke earlier in the day, and then just ended up having to carry it around," Gray explained to MUNCHIES. "It just so happened that there was this art display with a free stand, so we thought, 'Hey why not give it a shot and see how long it lasts?'"

And the stunt soon escalated. "We were expecting it to stay there maybe a day, but the outcome is far more than we could have ever asked for… far more successful than we could have dreamed of," Gray laughed, referring to the fact that the pineapple was eventually upgraded to a glass display case.

All of which led the student to come to his own conclusions about art, "I think it shows that people will accept anything as art if you put it in the right place."

But, in a certain sense, Gray's prank was indeed performance art—a mischievous but contemplative commentary on the art world. Maybe Gray is more of an artist than he gives himself credit for. Ever heard of Dadaism?