Auction house Sotheby’s opened a new page in art history. And fruit. Both at the same time. At the auction held in New York yesterday afternoon, Sotheby’s closed the sale of Italian Maurizio Cattelan’s work ‘Comedian’ for a total of 6.2 million dollars. Nothing extraordinary so far. The number is big, it’s true; But it’s nothing unprecedented in the sometimes extravagant art market, where seven-figure sums (or even more) are being asked for NFTs, or hundreds of millions of dollars are being paid for works of questionable authorship.

The surprising thing about ‘Comedian’ is not its price, its nature. The work is not a sculpture. It’s not a painting. It’s not even a typical performance. NO.

Cattelan’s work is nothing more or less than a fresh banana stuck to the wall with thick gray adhesive tape. And no, there’s nothing special about the banana, except that it comes with a certificate confirming that it’s one of Cattelan’s works. In fact, the one that went up for auction in New York yesterday was purchased for only 35 cents from a fruit stand in Manhattan the same day.

Exactly, the price of the banana, if we understand it as material for artistic creation, represented 0.00000005% of the amount for which ‘The Comedian’ was sold just a few hours later.

This is not a banana, this is art

To understand what happened yesterday, it is necessary to go back a few years to 2019, when Cattelan made a presentation at the fair. Miami Art Basel One of his most original works. The Italian creator had previously served as Pope Paul II. The statue of John Paul II, formed as a result of a meteorite impact, surprised him with ‘La Nona Ora’; or ‘America’, a functional toilet made of 18 carat pure gold, but ‘The Comedian’ wanted to go one step further with his new creation.

The job was a banana.

More precisely, a fresh, ripe banana taped to a wall exactly 160 centimeters above the ground. Nothing more, nothing less. For Cattelan, it was a satire, a creative critique of art market speculation designed to raise the question in the viewer: “On what basis does an object gain value in the art system?”

Strange as it may seem, three editions of ‘Comedian’ have been released (plus “two artists’ proofs,” according to Sotheby’s), and the offering has generated considerable anticipation at Art Basel Miami Beach. In fact, the Perrotin gallery managed to sell the pieces for a good price: between $120,000 and $150,000.

The pieces contained something else, of course: a certificate Originality in which the work is described in detail. That way, when the banana goes bad after a few days, the owner of ‘Comedian’ can go to the supermarket or his trusted fruit shop, spend as little as 35 cents on the banana that was auctioned at Sotheby’s yesterday, and replace it.

The sale of a banana taped together in an art gallery for 120,000 euros was so shocking that Cattelan’s offer also attracted the attention of nearby media organizations. GuardArtnet, USA Today, CBS News, NewsweekNews any New York PostThis phenomenon was even helped by the fame and attention aroused by Cattelan, who devoted the cover and a large headline to him in the December 6, 2019 issue, famous for his other works such as his pure gold toilet.

“He earned ‘Comedian’ status in a few days universally recognizable image“, they recall from Sotheby’s. For them, Cattelan’s sticky banana has now become part of an elite club of subversive works that includes Édouard Manet’s ‘Olympia’ or Marcel Duchamp’s ‘Fountain.’ To be fair, In an even wilder twist, another artist, David Datuna, who contributed to the piece’s fame, decided to create his own performance, How?, based on the famous banana in December. 2019 ripped it off the gallery wall and ate it.

With this story behind it, one of the ‘Comedian’ works (i.e. the Cattelan certificate, as each banana only lasts a few days) ended up at Sotheby’s for auction. It was said that the work could cost between 1 and 1.5 million dollars, and even the tender started from 800 thousand dollars.

All these figures were insufficient. It’s too short. After numerous bids from seven interested parties, the famous banaba with ribbons and certificates was awarded a sum large enough to buy multiple houses: $6.2 million, including auction commission.

“I never thought I’d say ‘Five million dollars for a banana,'” auction manager Oliver Barker joked as bids were already drifting away. 1.5 million was initially predicted. After all, just a few hours earlier, that same banana had been purchased for a third of a dollar at a fruit stand near Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

At this point the million dollar question is obvious…Who made the offer More than six million for ‘The Comedian’? The answer is almost as interesting as the work itself. The lucky one was Justin Sun, who was a well-known face for a variety of reasons, including the fact that the network had promoted it. block chain TRON, or more recently, became the prime minister of the libertarian micro-nation Liberland.

For your generous spend, you’ll get a banana, a roll of masking tape, a certificate of authenticity, and instructions on how to set up the business or reassemble it in case the fruit rots and you have to go back to the grocery store in search of more. . This piece will be featured alongside other pieces Justin Sun has acquired over the years, including a sculpture by Alberto Giacometti on which he spent more than $75 million in 2021.

“This is not a simple work of art, it represents a cultural phenomenon In a statement confirming the value of ‘The Comedian’, Sun declared that it is a work that unites the worlds of art, memes and the cryptocurrency community. “I believe that this work will inspire more thought and discussion in the future and that this work will become even more widespread.” Be a part of history.” In the same spirit, Sun says he will follow Datuna’s example and eat bananas “to honor his place in the history of art and popular culture.”

Artistic and market valuations aside, one thing is clear: This is probably the most expensive banana in history.

Pictures | Sotheby’s and Wikipedia

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