At Art Basel Miami Beach in 2019, Maurizio Cattelan presented a work of art that captured public attention and has kept it, now five years later, past any expiration date. It was deceptively simple—a banana duct-taped to a wall and titled Comedian—but it was a provocation that became the subject of discussions about the value of art.
Comedian comprises a banana, duct tape, instructions for display, and a certificate of authenticity. Maurizio Cattelan, who is known for his clever and irreverent works, described the installation as “a sincere commentary and a reflection on what we value.” What at first seems amusing is really conceptual, an institutional critique of the art market, ironically offered for sale at an art fair recognized for its excess.
The banana itself is insignificant; without the certificate signed by the artist, it is only an ordinary banana. But as a conceptual work of art, it is one of an edition of three, plus two artist’s proofs, with a provenance that can be assigned economic value.
Galerie Perrotin sold all three editions during Art Basel Miami Beach. The first two went for $120,000 each, and the third for $150,000 to a buyer who donated it to the Guggenheim. Recently, number two reappeared at Sotheby’s with an estimate of $1 million to $1.5 million. The auction took place in New York on November 20, and the price with fees reached $6.2 million. The buyer was a cryptocurrency investor who made a spectacle of himself consuming the banana, oblivious to how he is now part of the joke.
Beyond market antics, Comedian suggests broader interpretations. Bananas, the world’s most consumed fruit, are inextricable from a history of colonialism and wealth extraction, subjects of the digital exhibition Banana Craze. While Cattelan’s work doesn’t directly address these, the banana highlights the symbolic potential of conceptual art.
By making a banana into art, Cattelan reveals the absurdity of the art world’s expectations and the art market’s appetite for spectacle. Comedian has become an ironic demonstration of the excesses that it critiques. By taping a banana to a wall, Cattelan didn’t just mock the art market—he let the market mock itself.