Update: Someone Ate the A$176k Banana Artwork at Art Basel
An art performance titled “Hungry Artist” by David Datuna
Update: In a surprising turn of events, a New York-based performance artist named David Datuna has eaten the banana artwork, the Comedian, an art installation featuring a banana duct-tapped to a wall that was sold to a French collector earlier this week for a whopping $120,000 (A$176k). “I can eat the banana and the concept of the banana — because I am an artist and not a regular human.” stated by Datuna.
David Datuna also said that, “It’s not about the piece. It’s an art performance. Maurizio Cattelan, I love him. One artist eats another artist. It’s fun.” He then added, “The performance name is Hungry Artist.” Lucien Terras also chimed in: “He did not destroy the work! The banana is the idea.”
The incident was reported to security by the gallery management, but Datuna slipped away, as per reports.
Meanwhile, the gallery insisted that the banana artwork lives on.
Original Post: 07 December 2019
Whatever you think of Cy Twombly’s blackboard scribbles or Banksy’s ripped Girl with Balloon, a new piece at Art Basel Miami Beach has moved the art market to a lucrative new level: Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan got a duct-tape and a banana then taped the banana on a wall and sold it for… $120,000 (A$176,000).
The piece, called Comedian, consists of exactly four parts: a local banana, a silver duct tape, an attachment surface and an authenticity certificate. Notwithstanding this simplicity and its perishable nature, Galerie Perrotin, located in Paris, Cattelan’s gallery, evidently had no problem selling it for the six-figure asking price.
The gallery founder Emmanuel Perrotin told artnet News that they already sold the artwork. Perrotin, the Parisian gallery has represented Cattelan for 27 years.
Shortly after a French woman purchased the banana, a French man reportedly purchased its replacement. The second edition price? $120,000, too.
Perrotin now plans to sell a third edition of the work to a museum, although the cost has been raised to $150,000 after some negotiation between Cattelan and the gallery. The price rise does not seem to dissuade curiosity, as two entities have shown interest in acquiring the banana artwork already. If the third banana is not sold, at the end of the week it will be thrown out, Perrotin told the website.
So what if a crafty collector dug through the trash for the duct-taped fruit’s final unsold edition or, worse, tried stealing the fruit and duct tape while visiting the annual art fair’s gallery pop-up? Perrotin is not nervous. He says that the banana is worthless without the certificate of authenticity of the artist: “A work like that—if you don’t sell the work, it’s not a work of art.”
The 59-year-old Cattelan is a provocateur in the art world. His former works are the controversial satirical sculpture La Nona Ora and the Americana, the recently stolen 18-karat gold toilet.
However, he insists that banana artwork, Comedian, is not a joke. In reality, he told artnet News that he spent a year trying to get the piece right, including bronze and resin casting, and then realizing that “banana is supposed to be a banana.” We couldn’t agree more, quite brilliant, actually.
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