NEW YORK -- Walk into any supermarket and you can generally buy a banana for less than $1. But a banana duct-taped to a wall? That might sell for more than $1 million at an upcoming auction at Sotheby’s in New York. The yellow banana fixed to the white wall with silver duct tape is a work entitled “Comedian,” by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan.
It first debuted in 2019 as an edition of three fruits at the Art Basel Miami Beach fair, where it became a much-discussed sensation. Was it a prank? A commentary on the state of the art world? Another artist took the banana off the wall and ate it. A backup banana was brought in.
Selfie-seeking crowds became so thick, “Comedian” was withdrawn from view, but three editions of it sold for between $120,000 and $150,000, according to Perrotin gallery. Now, the conceptual artwork has an estimated value of between $1 million and $1.5 million at Sotheby's auction on Nov.
20. Sotheby's head of contemporary art, David Galperin, calls it profound and provocative. “What Cattelan is really doing is turning a mirror to the contemporary art world and asking questions, provoking thought about how we ascribe value to artworks, what we define as an artwork," Galperin said.
Bidders won't be buying the same fruit that was on display in Miami. Those bananas are long gone. Sotheby’s says the fruit always was meant to be replaced regularly, along with the tape.
“What you buy when you buy Cattelan’s ‘Comedian’ is not the banana itself.
