If visual art is all about context, then two student pranksters can now claim their "Pineapple on a Pedestal" is the hottest new installation at their university gallery.

Ruairi Gray and his friend Lloyd Jack have confessed to pranking curators at the Robert Gordon University art gallery, by leaving a pineapple on a vacant display case in a room dedicated to visual art. Staff at the gallery in Aberdeen, Scotland, apparently mistook the pineapple for an installation and placed it under glass, making it part of the exhibit.

Gray says the whole caper unfolded because he and Jack didn't know what to do with their pineapple. "We walked past the art exhibition and see that there's an empty stand, so we thought we'll just stick it there and see how long it lasts," he told CTV News Channel on Tuesday.

Jack says he and Gray pulled the prank on Apr. 28, and returned on May 1 to find the pineapple enshrined in a display case. "RGU have moved it into a glass display case," Jack tweeted. "Amazing."

"It's the best possible outcome we could hope for," Jack said.

"A few days ago, I placed a pineapple next to an art display," Gray wrote in a Facebook post. "Come in today and someone from RGU has moved it into a glass display case. Unreal."

The pineapple was mistaken for part of the gallery's Look Again: Visual Art and Design Festival.

A festival organizer told the Press and Journal Chronicle that curators decided to keep the fruit, "because it's keeping with the playful spirit of this commission."

The festival retweeted Jack's boast about the prank, saying: "Look Again Festival – making stuff happen."

"They took it in good spirit," Gray said of the festival staff.

Gray says he's not ruling out a future in the art world, especially if he fails to find a job after graduation. "If I can't find anything, I'll just start adding fruit to random exhibitions," he said.