Scurrile sculpture

Glued-on banana could fetch €1.4 million

The delicious work of art could now fetch a lot of money at auction.

(Bild: APA/AFP/TIMOTHY A. CLARY)

Is this still art? The artist Maurizio Cattelan has attached a banana to a wall with adhesive tape. But what sounds like a bad joke could now fetch some serious money. The "work of art" is now being auctioned off.

A banana attached to the wall with adhesive tape could fetch up to 1.5 million dollars (around 1.4 million euros) at an art auction in New York, according to auction house Sotheby's. The work entitled "Comedian" by Italian conceptual artist Maurizio Cattelan is to be auctioned in November, Sotheby's announced.

Action artist simply ate a banana
Cattelan, known for his often bizarre sculptures, presented the banana installation at Art Basel Miami Beach in 2019 and set a price of 120,000 dollars. The American performance artist David Datuna then tore the banana off the wall and ate it.

Fruit is replaced every two or three days
A few years later, there was a similar incident in a museum in South Korea, where an art student took the fruit off the wall, peeled it, ate it and then stuck the peel back on the wall.

Cattelan was said not to have minded. According to his instructions, the ripe banana on the wall should be replaced every two or three days.