WATCH: Banana Duct-Taped to Wall Art Piece Fetches $6.24 Million at Auction
TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty
Artwork featuring a piece of real fruit is getting tons of attention after selling at auction for an exorbitant price.
Artist Maurizio Cattelan’s “Comedian” is a banana duct-taped to a white wall that on Wednesday fetched $6.24 million at Sotheby’s auction in New York, NBC News reported.
The piece was first seen displayed in Art Basel Miami Beach in 2019, drawing masses of people, one of whom took the banana off the wall and had it for a snack.
Breitbart News reported on Sunday the banana art had been valued at over $1 million:
Chloé Cooper Jones, an assistant professor at the Columbia University School of the Arts, said the piece stands at the “intersection of the sort of humor and the deeply macabre. He’s quite often looking at ways of provoking us, not just for the sake of provocation, but to ask us to look into some of the sort of darkest parts of history and of ourselves.”
Cooper Jones noted that the banana itself can be seen a symbol for colonialism and corporate power.
“It would be hard to come up with a better, simple symbol of global trade and all of its exploitations than the banana,” Cooper Jones said.
In a social media post on Wednesday, the New York Post shared an image of the banana art and said it sold for over $6.2 million, adding, “but we did it ourselves for just $5.75”:
When speaking of his work in 2021, Cattelan said, “To me, Comedian was not a joke; it was a sincere commentary and a reflection on what we value. 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.”
Video footage shows the banana art at the recent auction as two men wearing aprons and white gloves stood beside it. The bidding began at $800,000:
Sotheby’s said the artist, “single-handedly prompted the world to reconsider how we define art, and the value we seek in it.”
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