A conceptual artwork by Maurizio Cattelan, "Comedian," is just a fruit-stand banana taped on the wall. But plenty of bidders were biting.
A banana that for years has stirred controversy in the art world sold for $6.2 million with fees at Sotheby's contemporary art auction on Wednesday night. It became what is arguably the most expensive fruit in the world -- though it will likely be tossed in a couple days.
The banana is the star of a 2019 conceptual artwork, "Comedian," by the noted prankster Maurizio Cattelan, which is intended to be duct-taped onto the wall. It comes with a certificate of authenticity and installation instructions for owners to replace the banana -- if they wish -- whenever it rots. Five minutes of rapid bidding ended when the Chinese-born crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun placed the winning bid, besting six other rivals, which experts said was a sign that even a struggling market would spend big on spectacle.
"Returns in the market have been flat or decreasing over the last decade," said Michael Moses, who tracks the investment potential of artworks for clients. "It's a fascinating asset because you can get so much joy from it that people are willing to accept lower returns. Joy is not something to be messed with."
The Cattelan artwork first appeared at Art Basel Miami Beach, where Perrotin Gallery sold three editions of "Comedian" for $120,000 to $150,000 each. But the crowds proved so disruptive that the gallery eventually took the banana out of the booth after a performance artist, David Datuna, ripped it off the wall and ate it. At Sotheby's, the banana returned with an estimate between $1 million and $1.5 million, but the final price with fees sextupled its low estimate.
The work became a media sensation, appearing on the cover of The New York Post. Some critics were more generous than the tabloids. Writing in The New York Times, Jason Farago explained that the title "Comedian" is ironic -- "for Mr. Cattelan, like all the best clowns, is a tragedian who makes our certainties as slippery as a banana peel."
Back then, the artist said he conceived of his work as a satirical jab at market speculation, asking the question, "On what basis does an object acquire value in the art system?" In a recent email interview, he added that, "The auction will be the apex of its career. I'm eager to see what the answers will be."
From Stand Fruit to Auction Royalty
The actual Dole banana taped to the wall of Sotheby's on Wednesday evening was bought earlier in the day from a nearby fruit stand on the Upper East Side of Manhattan for 35 cents. Running the stand was a man from Bangladesh who did not give his name and said that he was not aware that one of his bananas was selling for several thousand times its original price.
"I bet the Sotheby's staff absolutely can't wait to stop having to listen to banana jokes and pretend like it's the first time they heard them," said the art adviser David Norman. "It has to be excruciating!"
The banana also attracted scrutiny earlier this month, when a Sotheby's executive, Michael Bouhanna, anonymously released a cryptocurrency named after the satirical artwork. Online traders accused him of using insider information from the auction house to financially benefit from the token's rising price. Bouhanna denied the accusations, saying in a statement that he "chose to launch the token anonymously, not wanting to associate it with my personal profile or professional affiliations."
A few hours before the auction began, the cryptocurrency -- known online as a memecoin because of its volatile value -- had a market cap of nearly $214 million. (Bouhanna declined through a spokesman to say what his personal financial stake in the token was.)
Cattelan's "Comedian" was also the only artwork offered in Wednesday's sale that was advertised as accepting cryptocurrency as payment.
"The conceptual nature of the artwork has drawn interest not only from our traditional collecting community but also from the wider crypto community," Karina Sokolovsky, a Sotheby's spokeswoman, acknowledged. "We've received requests from potential bidders to pay with crypto."
Cattelan, 64, who in 2016 installed a solid-gold toilet in a bathroom at the Guggenheim Museum, and once duct-taped his own dealer to the wall of a gallery, has often criticized the art market, saying auctions are unfair to artists, who do not generally stand to benefit (except in publicity). "What bothers me is that after the first sale, the artist no longer profits as the work changes hands," he said in an interview. "Auction houses and collectors reap the benefits, while the creator, who makes the very object driving the market, is left out."
The banana was the last of just 10 lots offered in the "Now" portion of Sotheby's two-section contemporary art sale on Wednesday. The equivalent "Now" auction in 2022 -- the last boom year for the art market -- had 23 lots and raised $72.9 million.
Moses, the financial analyst, said that buying the banana would be a risky bet from an investment perspective; few artworks dealing in shock value have seen positive returns on repeat auction sales. "The buyer needs to be bulking up on joy utility, because it's not clear to me that this will be an addition to wealth utility," he said.
Julia Halperin and Scott Reyburn contributed reporting