Maurizio Cattelan’s Viral Banana Art Is Back on Sale and Could Fetch $1.5 Million
Maurizio Cattelan’s infamous artwork, “Comedian” — a banana duct-taped to a wall — first stunned the art world in 2019, selling for $120,000 at Art Basel Miami Beach and sparking a global debate on the meaning and value of art. Now, the viral sensation is back in the spotlight, with one of its three editions set to go under the hammer at Sotheby’s for an estimated $1 million to $1.5 million.
The winning bidder will receive a roll of duct tape, a banana, a certificate of authenticity, and installation instructions. Importantly, neither the tape nor the banana will be the originals, as “Comedian” is a conceptual work designed to be replaced each time it is installed.
Cattelan’s creation, displayed with the help of French gallery Perrotin, became a media sensation five years ago, causing a stir with its six-figure price tag. The banana used was originally purchased from a Miami grocery store, though its temporary nature was part of the artistic statement. Art critics were divided, with some seeing Cattelan’s work as rooted in the tradition of conceptual art pioneered by Marcel Duchamp’s provocative “Fountain.” The installation quickly drew crowds, with attendees eager to see the piece that had captured so much attention.
The artwork’s moment in the limelight was further amplified when performance artist David Datuna famously removed the banana from the wall, peeled it, and ate it in front of a shocked audience. Datuna defended his actions as a performance art piece of its own, adding another layer of meaning to the already controversial work.
Despite the spectacle, “Comedian” was a commercial success at Art Basel, with all three editions selling. Two were bought by private collectors for $120,000 each, and the third was acquired for a higher sum before being donated to the Guggenheim Museum in New York.
The upcoming auction of “Comedian” marks the first time it will appear at public sale. While Sotheby’s has not disclosed the seller’s identity, it confirmed that the current owner acquired the piece from one of the original buyers. The sale is set to take place on November 20 at Sotheby’s New York headquarters, and the artwork will be exhibited beforehand, embarking on a world tour with stops in major cities like London, Paris, Milan, Hong Kong, and Los Angeles.
In his reflections on the piece, Cattelan has maintained that “Comedian” is not simply a joke, but rather a commentary on what society values. Sotheby’s head of contemporary art for the Americas, David Galperin, praised the work’s wit and critical thought, stating, “If at its core, ‘Comedian’ questions the very notion of the value of art, then putting the work at auction will be the ultimate realization of its essential conceptual idea — the public will finally have a say in deciding its true value.”
In 2023, the artwork made headlines again when it was exhibited at the Leeum Museum of Art in Seoul, South Korea. In a display reminiscent of its Miami debut, a hungry art student removed the banana and ate it before taping the peel back to the wall. The museum simply replaced it with a fresh banana, keeping in line with the artwork’s conceptual nature.
As the art world awaits the outcome of the auction, the enduring intrigue and controversy surrounding Cattelan’s “Comedian” underscores its significance as both a cultural phenomenon and a thought-provoking statement on the nature of art itself.
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