Maurizio Cattelan’s Comedian art piece, a banana duct-taped to a wall, sold for a jaw-dropping $6.2 million at Sotheby’s on Wednesday. Justin Sun, founder of the Tron cryptocurrency platform, bought the fruit.
Sun plans to pay in crypto and eat the banana as part of the “artistic experience.”
To maintain the piece, owners follow a 14-page guide with rules like replacing the fruit regularly and ensuring the banana curves right. They get a certificate of authenticity allowing them to duct tape a banana to a wall and call it Comedian.
The work debuted at Art Basel Miami in 2019 and immediately took the art world by storm. Cattelan sold three editions, each ranging between $120,000 and $150,000. One edition now resides at the Guggenheim Museum.
Cattelan’s work and its viral fame sparked debates about what defines art and what art houses consider valuable.
Sotheby’s hyped the recent banana art sale as a cultural event, showcasing it solo in a sacred-like display and even distributing banana-themed merch.
The auction stirred fresh buzz around meme-based cryptocurrencies tied to the fruit. Tokens like $BAN hit a $330 million market cap. Another coin $BTW, short for Banana Tape Wall, holds a $4.5 million valuation.
Elsewhere in the art world, a Rene Magritte painting, The Empire of Light, sold for $121.2 million at Christie’s, marking a record-breaking moment for the late Belgian surrealist. It puts him in the $100 million club among heavyweights like Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol.