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Duct-taped banana sells for more than $6 million at auction (www.nbcnews.com)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

14 comments fedilink hide all child comments

A banana duct-taped to a white wall — or an acclaimed piece of art, depending how you look at it — sold at a Sotheby's auction for $6.24 million Wednesday.

Maurizio Cattelan's "Comedian" is simply a banana stuck to the wall with a strip of silver duct tape exactly 160 centimeters from the floor.

The artwork debuted at Art Basel Miami Beach in December 2019 and was initially estimated to sell for $1.5 million, according to Sotheby's.

Art Basel quickly had to take the banana off the wall because of the crowds it drew, as it was prompting concern for the other featured artworks, art critic Nancy Durrant said in a Sotheby's video about the piece of art.

It was the first art fair Cattelan was included in for 15 years, and it was the "announcement as a new original work by Maurizio Cattelan that captured the world's attention immediately," said David Galperin, Sotheby’s head of contemporary art for the Americas.

At one point, someone even took the banana off the wall and ate it.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 3 months ago (7 children)

You’re not paying for the original banana (well, you are, but you’ll have to replace it with a banana of your own sourcing every few days), and presumably the duct tape is ordinary as well, and there’s no special secret trick to correctly arranging it, so anyone reading this could perfectly recreate the artwork at home. You’re paying for the receipt certifying you to be the one person who paid for the concept. In other words, it’s like a NFT, only more ecologically sound.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It says at the end of the article someone took the original banana off the wall and ate it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

do you ever think about how the original paint that Da Vinci used to paint the Last Supper faded away hundreds of years ago?

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