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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Lifestyle
Dalya Alberge

Banana split: artists set for court battle over who first taped fruit to the wall

Woman holds out her mobile phone at arm's length to photograph a banana duct taped to a wall
Maurizio Cattelan’s Comedian on display at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing in 2021. Photograph: Wiktor Dąbkowski/ZUMA Press Wire/REX/Shutterstock

The latest US lawsuit over a work of art is absolute bananas in every sense. An Italian artist who attached a banana to a wall with duct tape and titled it Comedian – reportedly selling several versions for more than $100,000 – is facing legal action over whether he copied another artist’s work.

Maurizio Cattelan is accused of copyright infringement by Joe Morford, from Glendale, California, who says Comedian is just like his own duct-taped fruit, Banana & Orange, which he made two decades earlier.

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