Maurizio Cattelan‘s duct-taped banana artwork is back like it never left. The subversive piece, entitled Comedian (2019), first bewildered audiences during Art Basel Miami Beach. As an edition of three, the first two sold fairly quickly for an astonishing $120,000 USD via Perrotin, followed by a slight price bump of $150,000 USD to an anonymous buyer linked to the Guggenheim Museum in New York.
Comedian has taken quite a few turns since then, being eaten several times, first by a New York-based performance artist named David Datuna, and a South Korean student who alleged to have done the same under the guise of performance art in 2023.
“To me, Comedian was not a joke,” Cattelan previously explained, “it was a sincere commentary and a reflection on what we value. At art fairs, speed and business reign, so I saw it like this: if I had to be at a fair, I could sell a banana like others sell their paintings. I could play within the system, but with my rules.”
The latest event to join the Comedian saga is a new auction at Sotheby’s New York outpost, which will likely garner quite the appetite for art collectors and pranksters alike, as it will come with an estimate of $1m to $1.5m USD. The artwork will tour across 10 global cities and then auction off as part of The Now and Contemporary Evening Auction, from November 8 to 20.
