Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan’s infamous set up involving a banana duct-taped to a wall is as soon as once more placing the slippery worth of artwork within the highlight.
This month, worldwide public sale home Sotheby’s will put one of many paintings’s three editions up on the market in New York, with an estimated worth of between US$1m and US$1.5m. The profitable bidder will obtain a banana, a roll of duct tape, a certificates of authenticity and directions on the best way to set up the work.
Cattelan’s work, titled Comic, debuted at Artwork Basel Miami honest in 2019 as an version of three, the place its US$120,000 price ticket made headlines worldwide and prompted debate concerning the nature of artwork and its worth – solely fuelled by the artist’s admission that he bought the banana from a Miami grocery for round 30 cents.
The banana drama went viral when New York efficiency artist David Datuna eliminated and ate the banana, which was then changed.
In Could 2023, the work once more hit the information, after a South Korean artwork scholar repeated Datuna’s stunt, eradicating and consuming the banana from an version of Comic that was on show in Seoul’s Leeum Museum of Artwork.
In late 2023, an version of Comic went on show on the Nationwide Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne as a part of their Triennial exhibition – with out mishap.
Sotheby’s hasn’t disclosed the supply of the version being auctioned, however mentioned the present proprietor acquired it from the gathering of one of many unique patrons.
Of their catalogue observe, the public sale home describes Comic as a “masterpiece” that “single-handedly prompted the world to rethink how we outline artwork, and the worth we search in it”. It compares the work to Jeff Koons’ three-edition sculpture Rabbit (which broke data for gross sales by a residing artist when an version bought for US$91.1m in Could 2019) and Andy Warhol’s collection of screen-print work of Marilyn Monroe, “each of which accurately and metaphorically held the mirror to the face of up to date artwork”.
Cattelan has type relating to cheeky, provocative work: in 2016, he put in a stable gold, absolutely functioning rest room on the Guggenheim and referred to as it America; in 1999 he duct-taped his artwork supplier to a wall for the opening of his exhibition A Good Day. For an earlier exhibition, he satisfied his French supplier to costume in a phallic bunny costume.
Weighing in on Comic in 2019, Guardian’s artwork critic Jonathan Jones mentioned: “Cattelan’s rest room mocked the money-obsessed artwork world by being probably extra priceless for its uncooked materials than its idea – reflecting a market that may flip shit to gold. His banana makes the identical joke the opposite approach spherical by being manifestly not price its asking worth.”
Cattelan himself has mentioned that the work “was not a joke”, telling the Artwork Newspaper: “It was a honest commentary and a mirrored image on what we worth. At artwork gala’s, pace and enterprise reign, so I noticed it like this: if I needed to be at a good, I might promote a banana like others promote their work. I might play throughout the system, however with my guidelines.”
Comic will likely be up on the market at Sotheby’s up to date night artwork public sale in New York on 20 November.
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