PARIS- Speaking with members of the international press, curators from the worlds’ museums admitted shock they’d been suckered into buying so many paintings of fruit. “We really goofed on this fruit stuff guys,” declared Max Steinbrenner of the Rijksmuseum.
Officials from the Guggenheim, El Prado and the Louvre insisted they didn’t realize how many portraits of bananas, pears and apples they had on display until they started piling up. “It’s a little embarrassing. We probably only needed like two or three of these, four at most,” admitted Leo Mazzara of the Galleria d’Academia. One appraiser for the Tate Modern said it somehow had nearly four hundred works depicting “grapes and such” in storage alone, most of which he deemed “not even that good.”
Art experts say sellers managed to pull one over on them with appeals to the zeitgeist. “They pointed out if we hadn’t missed out on the Surrealist hype we’d have posters of melting clocks in the gift shop. You know how many of those we could’ve sold to guys in college who did shrooms that one time?” asked Mazzara.
Art historians say museums are too easily hoodwinked to diversify their fruit portfolio. “They get their hands on some Picasso fruit but then some other guy convinces them El Greco’s fruit is a whole different ballgame. Pretty soon they have a whole wing of the stuff and the cleaning staff is just shaking their heads.”
The world’s art leaders said they were perplexed their respective institutions hadn’t crumbled from the billions of dollars they’ve spent buying paintings that consist solely of fruit. “The fact we haven’t bankrupted ourselves over these purchases is astonishing. We are literally drowning in acrylic papayas.”
At press time, museum officials said they probably didn’t need so many statues missing an arm.
The (Near) New York Times 