Art collectors are going bananas over an artwork that essentially
consists of a real banana duct-taped to a white wall at an art gallery,
with some paying as much as $120,000 for it.
Titled “Comedian”, the original artwork by Italian artist Maurizio
Cattelan was on sale this week from Parisian gallery Perrotin, at the
Art Basel festival in Miami. The first edition of the artwork was
snatched up by a French art collector for the mind-blowing price of
$120,000, and according to gallery owner Emmanuel Perrotin a second
edition of Comedian was already sold for the same dizzying price. After
successfully selling two bananas for a total of $240,000, the artist and
the Perrotin gallery owner decided to to up the price of the third
edition to $150,000.
“We already sold it!” a triumphant Emmanuel Perrotin told reporters. “It’s a miracle; I don’t know how this happened!”
Apparently Cattelan is considered somewhat of a prankster in the art
world, but Perrotin Gallery insists that the artwork currently causing
such a stir in the art world is no joke. In fact, the artist allegedly
came up with the idea for Comedian last year, and spent a lot of time
considering every aspect of the artwork, from the shape of the fruit, to
the angle its been duct-taped to the wall, to the size of the wall
itself. He apparently even considered using a fake banana in the
beginning.
“Every time he traveled, he brought a banana with him and hung it in
his hotel room to find inspiration,” a statement from Perrotin Gallery
stated. “He made several models: first in resin, then in bronze and in
painted bronze, finally coming back to the initial idea of a real
banana.”
If you’re trying to figure out how the artist and his gallery settled
on the price of $120,000 for Comedian, they apparently tried to strike a
balance between an amount that would have been considered
insignificant, and one that would people would think of as outlandish. I
guess they succeeded…
Comedian has been a hit at Art Basel Miami, with visitors queuing up
to snap selfies with it, but organizers aren’t worried that the
expensive artwork might get stolen. Should that happen, they already
have another banana on hand. After all, without Maurizio Cattelan’s
certificate of authenticity it’s just a banana duct-taped to a white
wall.
