In case you haven’t been on the internet lately, a duct tape banana was sold at Art Basel in Miami for $120K. However the people who purchased did not buy the psychical art, but the idea and a certification of the art – therefore being able to recreate the art themselves. Art Basel Banana is catchy, but it’s not actually the work’s name. Titled Comedian, it’s by Maurizio Cattelan. Cattelan is an Italian artist and an absurdist—in 2016 he replaced a toilet at the Guggenheim with a fully functioning gold one. He called the artwork America.
Perrotin raised the price on Comedian to $150,000 immediately after the second sale in the hopes a museum would purchase it. Then, during the fair’s public hours, a man decided to do what everyone was thinking: He took the banana off the wall and ate it. Later, he was revealed to be Georgian-American artist David Datuna, who declared his act a piece of performance art, which he titled Hungry Artist. Afterward, the gallery taped another banana to the wall — this is conceptual art after all, so what is being sold is not the banana itself but the idea of taping a banana to a wall, along with a certificate of authenticity.
There is now a Instagram account dedicated to these images. But in the mean time, have a look below to see how the interest has reacted!
