Fruit fancies: How the art world went bananas for a $6.2m piece of fruit taped to a wall

Last night, cryptocurrency entrepreneur Justin Sun bought a banana for $6.2m. Okay it wasn’t immoderate aged banana, it was a arguable portion of modern art, titled The Comedian, which was created by Italian creator Maurizio Cattelan. And the enactment is simply a supermarket banana taped to the wall.

And yes, past nighttime it sold astatine auction successful New York for $6.2m – and the winning bid came from Sun, laminitis of TRON.

Five years. The Comedian archetypal debuted successful 2019 astatine Art Basel Miami Beach and caused an net storm. Described by Cattelan – a surrealist creator – arsenic “a sincere commentary and a reflection connected what we value,” it brought radical flocking successful specified droves that it was yet taken disconnected the wall.

Before it did, 3 editions of the artwork were sold for betwixt $120,000 and $150,000 – and, successful different portion of metaphysical commentary, an creator (not Catellan) took the banana disconnected the partition and ate it.

The Comedian went onto animate tattoos, Halloween costumes and an Instagram leafage of its precise own, which showed pictures of radical dressing arsenic the gaffer taped fruit.

Quite speech from however galore bananas this artwork has gone done (from past night’s premier banana, it’s wide Cattelan is not inactive moving with the 2019 model).

Ahead of the auction, Sotheby’s caput of contemporary art, David Galperin, said that “what Cattelan is truly doing is turning a reflector to the modern creation satellite and asking questions, provoking thought astir however we ascribe worth to artworks, what we specify arsenic an artwork.

Impressively well. The bidding started astatine $800,000, but Sun ended up paying astir 40 times that to summation the rights to The Comedian. In fact, the auction was truthful hotly anticipated that guests flooded the level to instrumentality pictures of the banana itself (which was guarded by 2 handlers).

“Don’t miss this opportunity," the auctioneer, Oliver Barker, said. “These are words I've ne'er thought I'd say: 5 cardinal dollars for a banana.”

First of all, the artwork itself. Or much accurately, a certificate of authenticity that volition fto Sun portion a banana to a partition and telephone it The Comedian.

According to Galperin, “what you bargain erstwhile you bargain Cattelan’s ‘Comedian’ is not the banana itself, but a certificate of authenticity that grants the proprietor the support and authorization to reproduce this banana and duct portion connected their partition arsenic an archetypal artwork by Maurizio Cattelan.”

Plus, Sun volition beryllium getting the banana, and already has plans for it. In a statement, helium declared that “in the coming days, I volition personally devour the banana arsenic portion of this unsocial creator experience, honoring its spot successful some creation past and fashionable culture.”

The astir costly banana successful history? We anticipation helium enjoys it.