--- title: Pineapple Prank Mistaken for Art at Exhibit description: A student left the spiky fruit at an art show as a prank — and even the curators thought it was worthy of protection for display. canonical: https://time.com/4772143/pineapple-art-prank/ author: Raisa Bruner article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-05-09T18:20:26.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:43:28.173Z og:title: People Thought This Discarded Pineapple Was a Piece of Art og:description: The fruit was left at an art show as a student prank og:url: https://time.com/4772143/pineapple-art-prank/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: People Thought This Discarded Pineapple Was a Piece of Art twitter:description: The fruit was left at an art show as a student prank twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # People Really Thought This Mysterious Discarded Prank Pineapple Was a Piece of Art > Sponsored content. 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Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically.  by [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner May 9, 2017 6:20 PM UTC  by [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner May 9, 2017 6:20 PM UTC Art is in the [eye of the beholder.](http://time.com/4701055/mona-lisa-happy-smiling-study/) That was certainly the case at a recent art show at Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, Scotland over the weekend, when one mischievous student left a random pineapple on an empty display stand to see what would happen, as a prank. Lo and behold, a few days later curators of the festival — aptly entitled [“Look Again”](https://www.rguunion.co.uk/news/article/radar/Pineapple-Becomes-Part-of-Look-Again-Exhibit/) — had decided that the spiky fruit deserved its spot on a slab, even going so far as to enclose it in a glass case. “We were shocked and in disbelief. We didn’t stop laughing for about 10 minutes,” the mastermind behind the mischief, business information technology student Ruairi Gray, [told Metro UK.](http://metro.co.uk/2017/05/09/someone-left-a-pineapple-at-an-art-show-and-it-got-mistaken-for-art-6624887/) He documented his activities on his [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/RuairiGray), first posting a snap of the lonely pineapple placed on an empty stand. “I made art,” he said. The next images show the fruit inside its glass encasement, officially co-opted into the exhibition’s display. He added that his tutor had visited the show and asked about the pineapple, only to be told by a an art lecturer not to question the exhibit. “Of course it’s real, you can see what they were trying to do with the top of the pineapple and the glass,” the tutor was apparently reminded. And this wasn’t just a casual student exhibition; the show’s director Sally Reaper said there were 30,000 visitors to the festival. She added that it was a “bit of a mystery” how the pineapple ended in the case, but they were in on the joke all along. “It was very clear to us it was a prank, but we have decided to leave it there because it’s in keeping with the playful spirit of our festival,” she explained. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4772143/pineapple-art-prank/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4772143/pineapple-art-prank/"},"headline":"People Really Thought This Mysterious Discarded Prank Pineapple Was a Piece of Art","datePublished":"2017-05-09T18:20:26.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:43:28.173Z","description":"A student left the spiky fruit at an art show as a prank — and even the curators thought it was worthy of protection for display.","url":"https://time.com/4772143/pineapple-art-prank/","keywords":["Newsfeed","viral","Bizarre","Art"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Raisa Bruner","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4772143/pineapple-art-prank/","name":"People Really Thought This Mysterious Discarded Prank Pineapple Was a Piece of Art"}}]}] ```