One of the three versions of Maurizio Cattelan’s artwork Comedian—a banana (worth $0.35) taped to a wall—was resold for $5.2 million at a Sotheby’s auction. The buyer, crypto entrepreneur and NFT (Non-Fungible Token) investor Justin Sun, paid a total of $6.2 million, including the buyer’s premium.
The three versions of the artwork, first exhibited in 2019 and widely recognized for going viral, were initially sold for $120,000 each for two versions and $150,000 for the third. Its previous owner offered one of these versions at yesterday’s auction.
Cattelan, often described as an “art provocateur,” is known for controversial creations. In A Perfect Day 1999, he taped art dealer Massimo De Carlo to a gallery wall using duct tape, and in 2016, he installed a fully functional gold toilet titled America at the Guggenheim Museum.
Traditionally, conceptual artworks are valued more for their ideas and messages than for their technical complexity, materials, or aesthetics.
Effectively, Sun paid this amount not for the banana and tape alone but for the certificate of authenticity and the instructions for installing the artwork, as it belongs to the category of conceptual art. Conceptual art is primarily valued for its idea and message rather than for technical complexity, materials, or aesthetics, as is typical of traditional art. The first conceptual artwork is widely considered to be The Fountain (1917) by Marcel Duchamp, although the movement officially began after 1960.
Sun stated, “This is not just an artwork but a cultural phenomenon that bridges the worlds of art, memes, and the cryptocurrency community.” Some art historians view NFTs—digital artworks that use blockchain technology to guarantee uniqueness—as an evolution of conceptual art.
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