Maurizio Cattelanʼs viral conceptual work The Comedian will be auctioned at Sothebyʼs in November. It is estimated at least a million dollars.
Bloomberg writes about it.
When artist Maurizio Cattelan taped a fresh banana to a wall at Art Basel in Miami in 2019, it initially caused outrage. Later, "The Comedian" became so popular that the gallery was forced to remove Cattelanʼs work due to the crowd of respondents.
The artist made three versions of the installation, for which he bought bananas from a local supermarket. One was sold by the Guggenheim Museum for $150 000, and the other two were bought by private collectors for $120 000.
Five years later, they decided to auction one of the installations, which was in a private collection.
“We are dealing with not only one of the most important and significant works of art that [Cattelan] ever created. Itʼs truly one of the most talked about works," says David Halperin, Sothebyʼs head of contemporary art in the Americas.
Anyone willing will be admitted to the auction — it will be public. Sothebyʼs expects that this will provoke many discussions and dialogues around the concept of value in art.
Anyone who purchases the "The Comedian" will receive a certificate of authenticity, which gives the right to display the work of art and explains how to do it correctly. In addition, the winner of the auction will receive a roll of adhesive tape and a banana. They can be replaced as needed.
Before "The Comedian" is put up for auction, Sothebyʼs will conduct a world tour with it — they will visit New York, London, Paris, Milan, Hong Kong, Dubai, Taipei, Tokyo and Los Angeles.
As Maurizio Cattelan previously told, he worked on the idea of the installation for about a year — every time during his travels, the artist glued a banana to the wall of the hotel room where he was staying. I thought about creating a banana in resin and bronze, then a banana painted with bronze paint, but in the end I woke up thinking that a banana should be a banana. Every detail of "The Comedian" is thought out — right down to the angle of the banana. And the bananas themselves symbolize international trade, a double meaning and a classic device for humor.
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