At first it was just a humble banana. Then it became a work of art – attached to a gallery wall with duct tape by the Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan. Next, it was eaten – twice – by a succession of performance artists who helped turn it into a global news story. And now, said banana has been sold for $5.2m at Sotheby’s New York, making it surely the most expensive piece of edible fruit on the planet.
The 2019 work, Comedian – which according to its maker is a “sincere commentary on what we value” – was purchased by crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun who described it as a “cultural phenomenon”. Sun forked out more than four times the initial estimate for the work during what was reported to have been an extremely fast-moving auction involving seven bidders. Even auctioneer Oliver Barker seemed a little taken aback: “These are words I never thought I would say: ‘The banana has sold for 5.2 million dollars,’” he joked at the conclusion of the sale.
Had Sun overpaid or made a smart purchase? The banana on auction was, according to the New York Times, bought earlier that day for just 35 cents from a fruit stand on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. That means the fruit’s value increased 15m times over the space of just a few hours. But then the banana is not what has really been sold here. Instead it’s the idea behind it, which Cattelan once told the the Art Newspaper was a comment on the art market itself: “At art fairs, speed and business reign, so I saw it like this: if I had to be at a fair, I could sell a banana like others sell their paintings. I could play within the system, but with my rules.”
For his $6.24m – the artwork’s full price after buyers’ fees are added – Sun will receive the banana, a roll of duct tape, instructions on how to install the work – including information on how to replace the banana – and a certificate of authenticity. It’s this latter item that holds the work’s true value. Anybody can duct tape a banana to their wall, after all, but Sun can authentically exhibit such a thing as Cattelan’s conceptual piece of art.
It is not the first time the price of Comedian has caused a stir. When it was first displayed at Art Basel Miami Beach, three editions of the work were sold for between $120,000 and $150,000 each, prompting the New York Post splash: “Bananas! Art world gone mad”. Yet affixing a “true” value to even the most traditional of works has always been tricky.
“To many people, the concept of paying anything more than the value of paint on canvas is baffling,” says Melanie Gerlis, author of The Art Fair Story: A Rollercoaster Ride. “And yet there are plenty of people in the art world elite who spend thousands and even millions on paintings. Cattelan is pushing this idea to its logical conclusion. The buyer is big in cryptocurrencies, so clearly understands abstract concepts. And he is probably feeling more wealthy after the Trump crypto bounce. Obviously $6.2m is a lot to spend on a banana, but Sun is buying the story of Comedian, the publicity and his own version of how he wants to be seen as a collector, which are seemingly priceless.”
“It’s a provocation, it’s meant to be ridiculous,” says Matthew Slotover, a co-founder of London’s Frieze art fair and a fan of Comedian. “It’s a very basic, valueless object. And its attachment to the wall couldn’t be more simple and un-artistic. It’s an absurd thing to do and absurd that people would pay money for it, but that is very much a part of the work.”
Of course, past works from Marcel Duchamp’s urinal to Carl Andre’s pile of bricks have caused similar stirs by turning everyday items into art. Why does Slotover think this one has connected?
“Some artists are just better than others,” he says. “They do it in a more interesting way, at the right time, in the right context and understand what they’re doing better than others. That’s true of works using found objects through history.”
In Cattelan’s case, unveiling it at an art fair was crucial: “You can create a buzz very quickly because you have thousands of people there, unlike in a private gallery.”
The banana has certainly been on a journey since its initial fame. Shortly after it debuted in Miami, the New York performance artist David Datuna unpeeled it from the wall and ate it on the grounds that he “was hungry” (a copycat stunt by a South Korean art student took place in Seoul last year). Cattelan himself is hardly a stranger to similar art world provocations. He once built a solid gold but fully functioning toilet under the title America, which the Guggenheim ended up offering to Donald Trump’s White House instead of the Van Gogh that had been requested.
Sun may have paid rather a lot for his banana and duct tape but he is not the exclusive owner of it. His purchase was for just one of three editions of the work, meaning that the concept itself will have two other owners.
Cattelan’s French art dealer, Emmanuel Perrotin, who has worked with the artist for over three decades, says that the huge value of Comedian was reached because it has “already shaped our era and will continue to inspire debate and reflection for many years to come, which is the hallmark of every significant artistic endeavour.”
He is convinced that the banana’s journey is “far from over”. Although the journey of this particular fruit-stand banana will, sadly, soon be over – Sun has said he has imminent plans to eat it, as a way of “honouring its place in both art history and popular culture”.
