What do you buy when you pay 6.2 million dollars for Maurizio Cattelan's taped banana?

Sold for $6.2 million under the hammer at Sotheby's in New York on November 20, Comedian, Maurizio Cattelan's famous duct-taped banana, has become an icon of contemporary Art, arousing both mockery and fascination. Return to a controversial work.

C‘is good “ the most famous banana in the world »: the Sotheby's auction house was barely joking when it announced in mid-October on social networks the upcoming sale of Comedian (2019), one of the most criticized contemporary works of art in recent years: a fruit, simply attached to an immaculate wall by a large piece of silver tape, based on an idea by the Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan.

Before being sold on November 20 for $6.2 million (shattering the initial estimate of $1.5 million or 1.4 million euros), the banana and its scotch traveled around the world for three weeks preceding the sale, stopping off in London, Paris, Milan, Hong Kong, Dubai, Taipei, Tokyo, Los Angeles, before returning to New York at the beginning of November.

It was in Miami in December 2019 that the banana took over the art market, on the stand of the Perrotin gallery. Deemed obscene or ridiculous by some, ignored with contempt by others, Comedian then hit the headlines. Art critics are opposed, summoning Marcel Duchamp and his urinal, denouncing the casualness with which the creative act is treated, or even recalling the provocative and subversive character of Maurizio Cattelan, known for imagining works voluntarily open to all interpretations. Here, above all, criticism of the art market and the price of the work surfaces without any nuance.

Banana swallowed

The image of the banana immediately went around the world, greedily taken up by the international media and hijacked by hundreds of Internet users. Above all, the banana was picked up a few days later by an American artist of Georgian origin, David Datuna, and eaten in front of the people invited to this protest in the form of a performance. “ Millions of people are dying of hunger. And he puts three bananas on the wall for half a million dollars? » declared the artist at the time to explain his gesture. And Duchamp again, hovering over the banana: in 1993, hadn't the artist Pierre Pinoncelli urinated in the Fontaine ?

Replaced immediately on the stand, following the precise protocol transmitted by the artist, and sold for two copies at 120,000 dollars and for a third at 150,000 dollars, the work has not yet finished with the controversies. In 2022, its authorship is thus called into question by a Californian artist, Joe Morford, author in 2001 of the installation Banana and Orange, in which a banana and an orange were attached to a surface by a large piece of silver tape. Maurizio Cattelan finally won this case in 2023. Finally, the banana will be eaten again in 2023 by a South Korean student during its exhibition at the Leeum Museum of Art in Seoul.

14 certificate pages

At the end of its sale at Sotheby's on November 20, Justin Sun, the happy new owner of the banana, a Chinese art collector who is also an entrepreneur in cryptocurrency, was entrusted with a 14-page certificate of authenticity. and detailed instructions on how to install the work (the artist asks to hang it 175 cm from the ground, at a 37 degree angle and recommends changing the fruit approximately every 7 to 10 days).

« It is not just a work of art, but a cultural phenomenon that bridges the worlds of art, internet memes and the cryptocurrency community. I believe this work will inspire more thoughts and discussions in the future and will become part of history » rejoiced Justin Sun on X. He will thus be able to enjoy the most famous (and most expensive) banana in the world in complete peace of mind.