Bidding went bananas in Sotheby’s New York salesroom as 7 bidders pursued Maurizio Cattelan’s provocative Comedian way beyond its pre-sale high estimate of $1.5 million to a final price of $6.2 million.
The winning bid was placed by Sotheby’s Deputy Chairman, Asia, bidding on the phone on behalf of Justin Sun, Chinese Collector and Founder of Cryptocurrency Platform TRON.
Comprised of a banana fastened with duct-tape to a wall, Comedian was first unveiled at the Art Basel Fair Miami in 2019. The work became a viral sensation in no time, drawing crowds, provoking debate, sparking controversy, and capturing the imagination of millions around the world. So dense were the crowds it attracted at the fair, it had to be removed from the premises. Eaten not only once, but twice, it dominated news stories around the world.
Ahead of thesale, Comedian traveled to no fewer than nine cities around the world - including Dubai, Taipei, London, Paris, Tokyo and Hong Kong. Back at Sotheby’s in New York, over 12,000 visitors came to see it, along with other masterworks, in the two weeks prior to the auction.
A subversive conceptual inquiry as to the definition of art and the value we assign to it, Comedian sits alongside other great works that have similarly tackled questions about the meaning of art, among them Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain, a readymade porcelain urinal turned over, mounted on a pedestal and signed with a pseudonym in 1917; Yves Klein’s Zone de Sensibilité Picturale Immatérielle and Banksy’s Love is in the Bin, which famously part-shredded as the hammer came down in Sotheby’s London salesroom in 2018. In many ways, Comedian’s title is a self-portrait of the art world’s enfant terrible: a masterpiece achieved only by means of provocation, humor, irreverence.
The example sold is number 2 of an edition of 3 plus 2 artist’s proofs, one example of which is now in The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York.