Many might have looked at the Italian visual artist Maurizio Cattelan’s viral duct-taped banana and thought “hey, I can make that.” Well, while you might have all the materials hanging around in your kitchen, good luck cashing it in at an auction like Cattelan just did. The banana sold for a jaw-dropping $6.2 million (including fees) at a Sotheby’s auction Wednesday evening.
The lucky new owner of a soon-to-be-rotten fruit? A Chinese millionaire and cryptocurrency celebrity, Justin Sun. The entrepreneur snagged the art piece, which Cattelan dubbed Comedian, after bidding started at $800,000 and lasted for around ten minutes. In a statement following the auction, Sun said that the banana “represents a cultural phenomenon that bridges the worlds of art, memes, and the cryptocurrency community.” Ok, sure.
He continued that, “in the coming days, I will personally eat the banana as part of this unique artistic experience, honoring its place in both art history and popular culture.”
Cattelan’s Duchamp-ian work first appeared at Art Basel Miami Beach in 2019. The Perrotin Gallery was able to sell three editions of Comedian for $120,000-150,000 each at the time. But the instillation caused so much buzz and controversy at the event that organizers were forced to remove it from display after a performance artist, David Datuna, ripped the banana off the wall and ate it. Apparently, now you can only do that if you have $6 million floating in the bank.
For the record, as a conceptual piece, the actual banana and duct tape can be replaced. So, no, Sun will not be eating a five-year-old banana.
Sotheby’s estimated that the banana would go for somewhere between $1 million and $1.5 million at yesterday’s auction. The final price landed at $5.2 million plus an extra $1 million in auction-house fees.
In a recent interview, Cattelan discussed the outrageous market value that had been ascribed to Comedian, saying “On what basis does an object acquire value in the art system? The auction will be the apex of its career. I’m eager to see what the answers will be.”
