A banana duct-taped to a wall was on Wednesday sold for $6.2 million at an auction at Sotheby’s New York — four times higher than pre-sale estimates.
The avant-garde artwork by Maurizio Cattelan, an Italian artist, was purchased by Justin Sun, a Chinese-born cryptocurrency entrepreneur.
Sun described the piece as a “cultural phenomenon bridging the worlds of art, memes, and cryptocurrency”.
Originally priced at $120,000 in 2019, the piece, titled Comedian, has become an emblem of conceptual art’s provocative nature.
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The latest sale marks the third iteration of the artwork. The first banana was famously eaten by David Datuna, the performance artist, during a Miami exhibition, an act he justified by saying he was “hungry”.
Sun plans to follow a similar path, announcing that he intends to eat the banana in the coming days as a part of what he calls “a unique artistic experience”.
The sale attracted seven bidders and surpassed its guide price of $1–1.5 million. Despite its perishable nature, buyers of Comedian receive a certificate of authenticity and instructions on replacing the banana when it decays.
Cattelan, known for his humorously provocative works, has explained the banana as a critique of the speculative nature of the art market.
He has previously made headlines for creations like a functioning 18-carat gold toilet titled America and a 1999 sculpture depicting the pope struck by a meteor, The Ninth Hour.
The banana sold at auction was reportedly bought for just 35 cents from a Bangladeshi fruit vendor in Manhattan.
Sun, the founder of cryptocurrency exchange Tron, has a history of bold art acquisitions. In 2021, he purchased Le Nez, a dramatically elongated nose sculpture by Alberto Giacometti, the Swiss sculptor, for $78.4 million. However, he has also faced scrutiny, including charges from the US securities and exchange commission for alleged market manipulation and unregistered crypto sales.
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