$2.6 Million Banana

WSJ:

The art market went bananas over a million-dollar banana.

“Comedian,” by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, sold for $6.2 million at auction Wednesday night.

The piece consists of an ordinary, yellow banana affixed to a white wall with a diagonal piece of silver duct tape. Since Cattelan debuted the work at Art Basel Miami Beach five years ago, what’s become known as the Banana has turned into a viral sensation. It’s attracted crowds, copycats, and even its own cryptocurrency.

The Banana also is reigniting a long-running debate about the value society is willing to place on an everyday object simply because an artist calls it art. (Marcel Duchamp famously kick-started the argument in 1913 when he mounted a bicycle wheel to a stool.)

Perrotin Gallery originally sold Cattelan’s duct-taped banana in an edition of three plus two artist’s proofs, or early prototypes—so five bananas in all—for between $120,000 and $150,000 apiece in 2019. On Wednesday, Sotheby’s in New York estimated its example from this bunch would sell for at least $1 million, but at least seven bidders chased it far higher.

Ultimately it sold to Chinese collector Justin Sun, founder of cryptocurrency platform Tron. He intends to pay for the piece in crypto. After the sale, Sun said he considered the piece to be historic, but he also said he has plans of his own for the Banana: “In the coming days, I will personally eat the banana as part of this unique artistic experience, honoring its place in both art history and popular culture.”

Cattelan, 64, splits his time between Milan and New York and has acted as the art world’s court jester since the 1990s. He is known for creating impish, realistic sculptures that satirize powerful and wealthy institutions including politicians and the Catholic Church. …

To keep a work made of a real banana intact, the artist enlists the work’s owner—who receives a 14-page sheet of instructions that doubles as a certificate of authenticity—to continually refresh the installation by buying their own supply of new bananas and tape. One stipulation is that the banana’s curve should point right, not left. The fruit should also be displayed vertically, not horizontally like a smile, and roughly at eye level.

If someone visiting Sotheby’s preview had tried to rip the Banana off the wall and eat it like artist David Datuna did at one point during its Miami fair debut, Sotheby’s was prepared. Expert David Galperin said, “We have backups.”

Marcel Duchamp submitted a urinal, titled “Fountain.” to a New York art exhibition in 1917, 107 years ago. You would think this kind of nihilistic gesture would have gotten old by now.

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“Charles,” said Cordelia, “Modern Art is all bosh, isn’t it.”
“Great bosh.”
“Oh, I’m so glad. I had an argument with one of our nuns and she said we shouldn’t try to criticize what we didn’t understand. Now I shall tell her I have had it straight from a real artist, and snubs to her.”

—Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited