It’s just a banana taped to a wall, but the work of Italian conceptual artist Maurizio Cattelan once again caused a sensation on the art market Wednesday evening in New York, purchased for $6.2 million by a Chinese-American entrepreneur.
In the Sotheby’s sales room, seven buyers or their representatives competed for the acquisition of the work “Comedian”, a banana hung on a wall using a piece of large silver tape.
For several minutes, the price climbed, going from 800,000 dollars to 5.2 million, or 6.2 million with fees, at the moment when the sound of the hammer sounded.
Shortly after, Justin Sun, founder of the cryptocurrency platform Tron, claimed to be the buyer in a Sotheby’s press release.
“It’s not just art. It represents a cultural phenomenon that bridges the worlds of art, memes and the cryptocurrency community“, assured the entrepreneur from Xining, China. He promised to “eat the banana to make it a unique artistic experience and honor its place in both art history and popular culture“.
Thirty-year-old Justin Sun had already distinguished himself by acquiring a sculpture by Alberto Giacometti, “The Nose”, in 2021 for $78.4 million.
The banana promised to be one of the stars of New York’s fall auction week. The work of the iconoclastic and provocative artist Maurizio Cattelan, which exists in three copies, is supposed to question the notion of art and its value. She has been talked about a lot since her first exhibition in 2019 in Miami, where another artist ate her to denounce its price, at the time $120,000. Another copy was donated to the Guggenheim Museum in New York.
Sotheby’s had set its estimate on Wednesday between $1 million and $1.5 million. The conditions of sale provide that the buyer is given a certificate of authenticity and instructions for replacing the fruit.
On Wednesday evening, “Comedian” was sold for more than a work by Roy Lichtenstein, American pop art figure, “Oval Office (Study)”, which sold for $4.2 million.
The day before, at Christie’s, “The Empire of Lights”, an emblematic painting by René Magritte, was sold for 121 million dollars, setting an auction record for the artist, in the centenary year of the surrealist movement.
