The $6.2 Million Banana, Explained
In November 2019, Perrotin gallery announced that Maurizio Cattelan, the art worldâs reigning prankster-provocateur, had made his first new work for an art fair in 15 years. It was called Comedian.
âMaurizio Cattelan is known for hyperrealistic sculptures that lampoon popular culture and offer a wry commentary on society, power, and authority,â the gallery said in a press release that went largely unnoticed at first. âComprised of a real banana affixed to the wall with a piece of gray Scotch tape, this new work is no different. In the same vein as Cattelanâs America (2016), this piece offers insight into how we assign worth and what kind of objects we value.â
The statement explained that Cattelan spent a year trying to make a sculpture of a banana. He tried resin, then bronze, then painted bronze, before âfinally coming back to the initial idea of a real banana.â
When Emmanuel Perrotinâs gallery first taped a banana to the wall of its booth at Art Basel Miami Beach on December 4 of that year (actually using duct tape, for the record), it was an immediate sensation among those at the First Choice preview. Comedian became the most Instragrammed work at the worldâs most Instagrammable art fair as two editions quickly sold for $120,000 before Perrotin reportedly texted the artist and asked if he could up the price to $150,000. There was also immediate outrage that someone could justâŠtape a banana to a wall, call it art, and sell it for six figures. Somebody came up and ate the banana at the fair, in protest. (The gallery just replaced it. The certificate accompanying the work says that the banana can be replaced at any point, and they had a backup banana.)
And then the New York Post put the work on its cover, ensuring its immortality. âBananas! Art world gone mad,â read the wood.
Five years later that $150,000 price now seems downright modest. On Wednesday night at Sothebyâs in New York, seven bidders chased Comedian well past its $1.5 million high estimate, until a client on the phone with Sothebyâs deputy Asia chair Jen Hua offered a bid of $5.2 million, which came to $6.2 million in fees, shocking the packed salesroom.
How did we get here, to a point where a 35-cent banana taped to a wall sells for the price of the most expensive house in Cleveland?
Courtesy of The New York Post.
Letâs take a step back. When I first got the Perrotin preview for Art Basel Miami Beach in 2019 and saw Comedian, it struck me as an archetypal work by the artist, a very high-level Cattelan. And the price of $120,000 seemed kind ofâŠreasonable? Maybe even a bargain?
Cattelanâs auction record is $17.2 millionâthat would be for a statue called Him, which is a tiny Hitlerâand several of his pre-Comedian ready-mades have sold in the seven figures. Daddy Daddy, a Pinocchio toy lying face down in a pool of water, sold for $1.2 million. Ostrich, which is just a taxidermy ostrich, sold for 1.5 million British pounds. This is a new artwork by an artist who semiretired after his Guggenheim retrospective in 2011, and itâs a particularly striking one: The juxtaposition of the industrial gray duct tape and the ripening soft yellow flesh of the banana is super punk rock, and kind of unforgettable. It nods to one of my personal favorite Cattelan works: A Perfect Day, in which he duct-taped his dealer, Massimo De Carlo, to the wall of his gallery and kept him aloft the entire day of the opening.
And the subversive nature of using a biodegradable medium like a banana didnât strike me as too challenging in a world where Urs Fischerâs Untitled (Bread House)âa house made of breadâcould be offered at Art Basel for $3 million. Bread rots too. The Guggenheim Bilbao changes the flowers on Jeff Koonsâs Puppy twice a year, but itâs still always Jeff Koonsâs Puppy.
Comedian is deeply engaged with art-historical movements, in line with the dadaist principles of Duchampâs ready-mades, mixed with the ephemeral nature of instruction-based conceptualism. The owner of the work does not receive a banana or duct tape; they get a 14-page manual that specifies how to tape the banana and where to put it on the wall, along with a certificate of authenticity.
Anyway, it was an immediate sensation, and the three editions sold instantly. Sarah Andelman, the founder of the now-defunct Paris fashion boutique Colette, was the first buyer, and reports at the time said that a French man bought the second edition. Another edition was bought by the Miami-based collectors Billy and Beatrice Cox.
In the years that ensued, the banana kept popping up. Even Damien Hirst said he wanted one so badly he offered Cattelan any of his artworks if he agreed to trade his AP. (Cattelan said no.) The Guggenheim announced that an anonymous buyer had donated an edition of the work to the collection. (The Coxes have said they intend to donate the work to an institution. The family did not immediately respond to a request for comment.) It was shown at the UCCA in Beijing, at the Palazzo Bonaparte in Rome, and the Leeum Museum of Art in Seoul in 2023, where, once again, it got eaten. Itâs still the last work of art to appear on the cover of the New York Post, and arguably the most famous artwork made this century.
âIt created a sensation that lasted, and is still lasting, into the present of the world in general,â Francesco Bonami, the former Venice Biennale curator and one of the worldâs great Cattelan experts, said in an interview with Heni in 2021. âHe created a sign that went beyond the border of the art world and invaded the collective imagination of the world.â
Then in October, Sothebyâs announced that it would be selling an edition of Comedian at auction for the estimate of between $1 million and $1.5 million. According to Sothebyâs provenance, the gallery White Cube had acquired the work from one of the original buyers, and this new owner had consigned the work to be sold. Everything was taken incredibly seriously. Comedian was installed at Sothebyâs in a chapel.
âCattelanâs Comedian represents the apex of a 100-year-long intellectual yet irreverent interrogation of contemporary artâs limits,â read the unsmiling wall text.
In a slumping art market, where shows with deafening hype go half-sold and masterpieces get zero bids at auction, there was every reason to think that Comedianâwhich is, again, literally a banana taped to a wallâwould fail to meet the million-dollar reserve. But the lot was guaranteed by the house, ensuring it would sell. Rumor even had it that the house had turned down offers of third-party guarantees in the $2 million range. (Sothebyâs declined to comment.) In the lead-up to the sale, I crowdsourced a question: How much will the banana sell for? The results were shocking. Very smart people told me this thing could sell in the range of $3â$4 million. One auction maven made an even wilder bet: $9 million.
Maurizio Cattelan’s “Comedian” is seen during a press preview for Sotheby’s Evening Auction on October 25, 2024 in New York City.by John Nacion/Getty Images.
On the seventh floor of the Sothebyâs headquarters Wednesday night, the vibe was a little different from most auctions Iâve been to. Sure, there was the crush of advisers and dealers grabbing catalogues and starting to schmooze, but I spotted way, way more guys in AimĂ© Leon Dore hats than usual. People were wearing sneakers, and not those $1,000 sneakers from The Rowâthose are an auction house stapleâbut, like, Jordans. Michael Eisner was thereâprobably not to bid on the banana, but it seems right to point out that the former head of the Mouse House was in attendance for this most Hollywood of events.
After a few lots, before auctioneer Oliver Barker opened bidding on Comedian, he mentioned something that close readers of the catalog had already noticed: Cryptocurrency payments would be accepted on this lot. This seemed like a reverse in policy, as the whole NFT/Bitcoin stuff has been a bit sidelined since the Web3 insanity crashed around 2022. But if you havenât noticed, Donald Trump got elected president thanks to meme lord and mega-rich person Elon Musk, who will run a new government agency called DOGEâyes, the name is a call back to Dogecoin, a forgotten memecoin that is currently peaking. Actually, all crypto seems to be peaking, which means there might be more people willing to spend their hard-speculated currency on some wacky conceptual art.
Once the formalities were dispensed with, Barker opened at $800,000, chandelier-bidding up at $100,000 increments. A collector in the room offered $1.3 million and was quickly beat out by two different phone bidders on the horn with Sothebyâs specialists, a potential buyer online, and a group of collectors battling it out from the middle of a row. That crew, actually wearing T-shirts emblazoned with images of the duct-taped banana, chased the beast until $2.4 million. At that point, the bidder on the phone with Hua was jousting with an online client, going back and forth, trading lobs and pushing the price higher and higher. First $4.8 million, then $4.9, and thenâŠ
âThese are words Iâd never thought Iâd say: $5 million for a banana,â said Barker. âItâs one expensive banana joke. This is it, donât let it slip away!â
Suddenly the online bidder came in at $5.1 million, forcing Hua back up to $5.2 million.
âItâs slipping through the auction room at $5.2 million,â Barker said.
That was the last banana joke. The gavel slammed down. With the buyerâs premium the price went up to $6.2 million. Applause rippled through the room and a bunch of Sothebyâs staffers with martinis and Negronis suddenly materialized. One staffer told me that the collector on the phone with Hua had come forward. It was Justin Sun, the wealthy founder of the cryptocurrency Tron, which is currently trading near its peak. No surprise there, really: For years Sun was held up as the future of art collectors, someone who splashed out equally on the old-school art masters ($78 million for a Giacometti sculpture, $20 million for a Picasso) and new-school âmastersâ (Beeple, PAK, all those kinda guys). He was reportedly watching the sale from his apartment in Hong Kong, where he plans to install the work, according to Bloomberg. Naturally, he took the auction house at its word, and told Bloomberg he is considering paying in crypto.
âThis is not just an artwork; it represents a cultural phenomenon that bridges the worlds of art, memes, and the cryptocurrency community,â Sun said in a statement. âI believe this piece will inspire more thought and discussion in the future and will become a part of history. I am honored to be the proud owner of this iconic work and look forward to it sparking further inspiration and impact for art enthusiasts around the world.â
He added that âin 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.â
Art Basel visitors in front of a banana attached with duct-tape that replaces the artwork ‘Comedian’ by the artist Maurizio Cattelan, which was eaten by David Datuna, in Miami Beach, Florida, December 7, 2019.By Eva Marie Uzcategui/REUTERS.
âIâm not really sure there is a right price, thereâs just a right price right now,â said Art Intelligence Global founding partner and former Sothebyâs rainmaker Amy Cappellazzo, when asked if Comedian is worth $6.2 million. âIt just depends on the level of liquidity.â
Just as the work lampooned and reflected the pre-pandemic excess of Art Basel Miami Beach in 2019, it speaks to this moment as well, and probably will continue to, just as Duchampâs shovel can still shock 100 years later.
âThe banana is the disciple of the shovel,â Cappellazzo added, and then stepped into an elevator to leave.
I reached out to Bonami, who was not in New York but followed the sale from Italy. He said that it would be a mistake to read too much into the price paid given the elastic nature of cryptocurrencies.
âThe entire thing is a kind of theatrical fiction. It could have been $100 million,â he said. âIt doesnât add anything to the radical nature of the workâin fact it diminishes it, because now you think about the price and not the brilliant radical gesture.â
The reaction in the room was nothing compared to the outside world. I posted a story to Instagram and immediately had dozens of aghast responders, desperate to know how a $6.2 million banana was possible. To many, it was the first hinge moment of the second Trump presidency, one in which the mind-boggling amount of money sloshing around, in crypto and otherwise, can make the absolutely impossible commonplace, the mundane miraculous, and the 35-cent banana a scionâs trophy.
The following day, Sun only further cemented the moment with a post on X of an illustration of a giant banana duct-taped to a space ship.
âIâm willing to donate my banana to Elon Musk, tape it to the body of a SpaceX rocket, and send it to both Mars and the moon!â Sun said.
Marcel Duchamp, In Advance of the Broken Arm.Courtesy CHRISTIE’S IMAGES LTD. 2024
The RundownYour crib sheet for the comings and goings in the art world this week and beyondâŠ
âŠOf course, there were also sales at Christieâs this week! On Wednesday RenĂ© Magritteâs Lâempire des LumiĂšres sold for $121 million after a protracted back-and-forth between house rainmakers Xin Li-Cohen and Alex Rotter, with Rotter winning on behalf of his client. So who bought the weekâs priciest artwork? It probably wasnât the biggest Magritte head I know: Wilbur Ross, the commerce secretary during Trumpâs first go-around who has bought so many Magrittes he has served on the board of the Magritte Museum in Brussels. But then again, heâs got the money for it, and he used to go to auctions while serving on the Cabinet soâŠmaybe!
âŠSpeaking of Duchampâs shovel that Cappellazzo mentioned in comparison to Comedian, that ready-made was actually the opening lot at Christieâs Wednesday, leading the 20th Century Evening Sale. In Advance of the Broken Arm came from the collection of the artist Joseph Kosuth, and it sold for just over $3 million to a client on the phone with Alex Marshall.
âŠThere was another one of Magritteâs Lâempire des LumiĂšres in the 20th Century Sale, but this one was a gouache on paper, and much smaller, and estimated at $6â$8 million. No matter, Li-Cohen, whose client was the underbidder on the record-breaking Magritte, was in the hunt once again and pushed the bidding higher and higher until it hammered at $16 million, double the high estimate, or $18.8 million with fees. Sources said that Li-Cohen was holding the same paddle number as she was during the last Magritte battleâindicating that the underbidder on the record breaker got the gouache as a bit of a consolation prize.
âŠMega-collector Tilman Fertitta made a big buy this week, but itâs not an artwork, per se. The chairman of the Landryâs restaurant group and owner of the Houston Rockets reportedly spent $30 million to purchase Keens, the best steakhouse in New York and the oldest in Manhattan. Having spent a bit of time there this week, and my whole life, all I can say is, Tilman, for the love of God and steak, please do not change a thing about Keens. Itâs actually perfect as it is. Donât open another Keens in Dallas. Just leave it alone, I beg you!
âŠChristieâs held its Contemporary Evening Sale Thursday night, with the $23 million Basquiat work on paper leading the evening. But it was also a lively night in Chelsea in which a number of galleries were opening their last big shows of the year. Mark Leckey had a blowout at Gladstoneâs 21st Street space, and the crew all moved to the always excellent Superiority Burger for the dinner, where artists such as Anicka Yi and Jamian Juliano-Villani, plus a number of MoMA and Guggenheim curators, opted for veggie burgers over the bidding action at Rockefeller Center.
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