Bidding for Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan’s viral creation “Comedian” began at a whopping $800,000 this year at Sotheby’s Auction in New York City. The piece up for grabs that day was a fresh banana, bought that very morning for 35 cents, affixed to a white wall with a strip of grey duct tape. The piece was sold to Justin Sun, a prominent cryptocurrency entrepreneur and well-known fraudster, for a final price of $6.2 million.
Since its debut as a work of conceptual art in 2019, “Comedian” has cemented itself as an iconic and polarizing work, one whose status as art is hotly debated and whose purpose is frequently questioned. Attendees flocked to the fruit when it first appeared as an exhibit at Art Basel Miami Beach, wondering whether its existence was a joke or a bold statement on the standards held by today’s art collectors. Performance artist David Datuna went so far as to peel the banana off the wall and eat it in front of hundreds of onlookers, claiming he was creating his own art from Cattelan’s. The Miami installation was eventually removed due to public safety concerns, but the artwork would go on to be displayed in galleries worldwide.
“Comedian” was exhibited in New York, London, Paris, Hong Kong, Dubai, Tokyo and Los Angeles before entering Sotheby’s Auction Hall. There, eager bidders gathered, one hand gripping the telephone connecting them to their moneyed employer, the other covering their whispering mouth and occasionally raising to indicate that they wanted to purchase, for millions of dollars more than the last bidder, the right to duct tape a banana onto a white wall exactly 160 centimeters high and call it “Comedian.” There is something off-putting about it all: a room full of the filthy rich who can afford to blow millions on something as mundane as a banana and who desire it enough to commit to actually doing so.
The banana, bought that morning at a Manhattan fruit stand, has to be replaced every seven to ten days due to the passage of time or on rare occasions, thanks to an attention and potassium-seeking audience member, such as David Datuna.
Sun himself falls into this latter category of hungry sightseers who want to make a show of the whole ordeal. In an Instagram post, he said, “I will personally eat the banana as part of this unique artistic experience, honoring its place in art history and popular culture.” However, the fruit he ate, which he said “tastes much better than other bananas,” was reported by the South China Morning Post to be a “regular” banana he bought in Hong Kong.
At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter, as the banana itself is not a permanent fixture. It is no different than the one browning on your kitchen table, not some immortal freak of nature that would warrant an absurd amount of attention and a lofty price. The “Comedian” fruit itself, with its overstated worth, manages to hold less prestige than a normal banana.
