This is not low hanging fruit.
Maurizio Cattelan’s “Comedian” has fetched a cool $6.2 million at auction at Sotheby’s in New York City.
crypto entrepreneur justin sun broke the The controversial act, which involved a real banana taped to the wall on Wednesday evening An event that also saw works by Roy Lichtenstein, Jasper Johns and Jeff Koons auctioned off,
Post recreated “The Comedian” for the modest sum of $5.75 – buying a banana from the bodega for 80 cents and a roll of heavy-duty duct tape for $4.95.
Our replica took less than 60 seconds to assemble and, as our photos show, it looks almost identical to the original.
However, what the lucky new owner of the artwork gets – and what we didn’t get – is a “certificate of authenticity” that grants them “permission and rights” to reproduce the work.
“I’ve always said, as much as I love art and it’s important, it’s the silliest thing where serious money changes hands and this work is certainly no exception,” art consultant ralph deluca — who has helped Leonardo DiCaprio and Sylvester Stallone build their collections — told The Post.
Still, DeLuca said “The Comedian” has a hefty price tag. It might have been a deal because it’s as Idea Because it is a real piece of art.
“Some people might consider this piece Duchamp’s ‘Fountain’ of the 21st century,” DeLuca told The Post, referring to the infamous urinal that sold for $1.7 million at Sotheby’s in 1999.
“How can one really call this exaggerated?” he asked.
since it was Unveiled at Art Basel, Miami in 2019“The Comedian” has shattered the pretensions of the creative industry, with Sotheby’s saying that it “has single-handedly inspired the world to rethink how we define art, and what value we find in it.” Are.”
“Maurizio Cattelan’s ‘Comedian’ became one of the art world’s hottest sensations,” David Galperin of Sotheby’s told The Post.
Following its debut at Art Basel, the “Comedian” made global headlines and even appeared on the cover of The Post.
While on display at the Florida Art Fair, performance artist David Datuna ate a banana from the wall, and described the act as a performance piece titled “Hungry Artist”.
The banana was replaced later that day.
Given that he named the artwork “Comedian”, Cattelan probably did not intend for it to be taken overly seriously.
However, Chloe Cooper Jones, an assistant professor at Columbia University School of the Arts, said it’s worth thinking about the context.
“His work often veers between humor and serious satire,” he told the Associated Press. “He often finds ways to provoke us, not only to provoke, but to ask us to look at some of the darkest parts of history and ourselves.”
Cooper Jones said the banana is a fruit with a history that is entangled with imperialism, labor exploitation and corporate power.
“It would be hard to find a better, simpler symbol of global trade and all its exploitations than the banana,” he told the outlet. If “Comedian” is about making people think about their moral complicity in the production of goods they take for granted, then it’s at least a more useful tool or it at least helps those There’s an additional kind of place to go in terms of questions that may be soliciting work.”
Cattelan – the Italian artist who created “The Comedian” – has been described by Sotheby’s as “one of the most brilliant provocateurs of contemporary art”.
In 2016, he came into limelight after creating an artwork titled “America” – a fully functional golden toilet sculpture.
During this time, Monday night, Sotheby’s sold out One of the famous paintings from the “Water Lilies” series by French Impressionist Claude Monet for $65.5 million.
When asked to compare Cattelan’s Bananas to a classic like Monet, Galperin told The Associated Press that Impressionism was not considered art when the movement began.
“No significant, profound, meaningful artwork of the last 100 years or 200 years, or our history for that matter, caused any kind of discomfort when it was unveiled for the first time,” he said.
