Banana duct-taped to wall sells for almost £5m at art auction

An unusual work of art – in the form of a banana duct-taped to a wall – has slipped to the highest bidder at a New York auction on Wednesday, fetching $6.2 million (£4.9 million).

Bidding for “Comedian,” by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, started at $800,000. But within minutes, it shot up into millions of dollars, before being eventually snapped up by cryptocurrency entrepreneur Justin Sun.

Sun has vowed to eat the banana, “honouring its place in both art history and popular culture”.

The piece debut in 2019 at Art Basel Miami Beach, where it was unclear whether the yellow fruit stuck to the wall was a joke or sarcastic dig at artistic standards among collectors.

It attracted so much attention it had to be withdrawn from view.

In May 2023, the piece was eaten while on display at Seoul’s Leeum Museum of Art. Noh Huyn-soo, an art student from Seoul National University, looked content and unashamed as he was filmed eating the fruit.

He smiled as he ate the banana and re-attached the skin to the wall using duct tape. He later argued he was performing his own piece of art.

No action was taken against him and the museum later replaced it with a fresh banana.

A banana taped to the wall of an art gallery in Seoul was eaten by a student who said he’d skipped breakfast in 2023. / Credit: Instagram/Shwan.Han

The Sotheby’s auction saw two white-gloved handlers standing either side of the work, as the auctioneer said: “These are words I’ve never thought I’d say: Five million dollars for a banana.”

The final hammer price announced in the room was $5.2 million (£4.1 million), which didn’t include the about $1 million (£790,000) in auction house fees, paid by the buyer.

Sun, who bought the piece and founded cryptocurrency platform TRON, said: “It represents a cultural phenomenon that bridges the worlds of art, memes, and the cryptocurrency community.

“Additionally, in the coming days, I will personally eat the banana as part of this unique artistic experience, honoring its place in both art history and popular culture.”

Sotheby’s calls artist Cattelan “among Contemporary Art’s most brilliant provocateurs.”

“He has persistently disrupted the art world’s status quo in meaningful, irreverent, and often controversial ways,” the auction house said in a description of “Comedian.”