The infamous artwork involving a banana and some random piece of tape has been sold – and you’l never believe for how much.
Branded as one of the boldest moves in modern art, Maurizio Cattelan’s ‘Comedian’ sold for a staggering $6.24 million at a Sotheby’s auction.
This peculiar, but highly sought after piece, debuted at Art Basel Miami Beach in December 2019 and quickly escalated from a quirky exhibit to a global phenomenon… and we’re still not quite sure why.
The artwork consists of a banana taped to a wall with a strip of silver duct tape, placed precisely 160 centimeters from the floor and that’s all it took for it to become “the most talked-about artwork of the century.”
Initially expected to fetch around $1.5 million, the piece’s allure skyrocketed as it went viral, prompting Art Basel to remove it due to the large crowds it attracted.
At one point, someone even took the banana and ate it, according to a report by NBC News.
David Galperin, Sotheby’s head of contemporary art for the Americas, highlighted that ‘Comedian’ marked Cattelan’s first inclusion in an art fair in 15 years and immediately became a hit in a video posted by the establishment.
Lucius Elliot, head of contemporary marquee sales at Sotheby’s also noted that it became a topic of debate as it’s popularity grew.
News outlets debated “whether this is art, whether it is a prank, whether it is a symbol of the excess of the art market,” Elliot said. “In truth, it is, of course, all of those things.”
Experts have somewhat come to the conclusion that the artwork is meant to be funny, but they said it also comes across quite as pretentious and sometimes even ridiculous.
For example, Cattelan “is presenting a work that mocks the very notion of art having this degree of value,” Elliot said, adding that while it is just a banana and duct tape, “it’s value is in its conceptual heft.”
“The important thing to know about Maurizio is that his jokes are serious and his serious work is funny,” Dodie Kazanjian, an editor for Vogue, said in the video, adding: “There’s something very deep in what Maurizio does, so the veneer of it might look like a banana, but there’s something else always at the core of what he’s saying.”
Emmanuel Perrotin, founder of Perrotin, the gallery where the piece was first displayed, initially tried to sell the piece off for an undisclosed amount prior to it’s debut. It was rejected, but three days later, he received a message from a different buyer who offered to pay seven times that price.
With that, Perrotin noted: “Imagine the change of perception created by the way it was received by the audience.”
I mean, there’s an undisclosed price and then there’s $6.24 million.
