Maurizio Cattelan’s viral artwork involving a banana duct-taped to a wall has sold at auction for US$5.2m, besting initial estimates of between US$1m and US$1.5m.
One of three editions for the 2019 work, titled Comedian, made its auction debut on Wednesday evening at Sotheby’s New York, as part of its contemporary art auction.
In a competitive and fast-moving auction in which cryptocurrency bids were accepted, bidding started at US$800,000 and quickly leapt beyond the initial estimates, as bids flew fast within the room at Sotheby’s Upper East Side location as well as over the phone and online.
“I never thought I’d say ‘$5 million for a banana’,” auctioneer Oliver Barker quipped as the bidding approached its climax. The banana displayed at Sotheby’s was reportedly purchased for 35c earlier that day.
Jen Hua from Sotheby’s China office placed the winning bid on behalf of Chinese-born crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun, who will pay US$6.2m including the buyer’s premium.
In return, Sun will receive a banana and a roll of duct tape, as well as a certificate of authenticity and instructions on how to install the work – including how to replace the banana, should they want to.
“This is not just an artwork, it represents a cultural phenomenon that bridges the worlds of art, memes, and the cryptocurrency community,” Sun said in a statement to Sotheby’s. “I believe this piece will inspire more thought and discussion in the future and will become a part of history.”
Sun said he plans to eat the banana, as a way of “honouring its place in both art history and popular culture”.
Described by the auctioneer as a “viral sensation”, Comedian debuted at Art Basel Miami fair in 2019 as an edition of three, where its US$120,000 price tag made headlines worldwide and prompted debates about the nature and value of art.
It subsequently went viral when New York performance artist David Datuna removed and ate the banana, which was then replaced. This spawned a copycat stunt in May 2023, in which a South Korean art student removed and ate the banana from an edition of Comedian on display in Seoul.
Cattelan, an artworld provocateur whose previous works include a solid gold, fully functioning toilet titled America, has said that Comedian “was a sincere commentary and a reflection on what we value”, telling the Art Newspaper: “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.”