A lady appears to be like at artist Maurizio Cattelan’s piece of artwork Comic throughout an public sale preview at Sotheby’s in New York on Nov. 11, 2024.
Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/AP
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Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/AP
NEW YORK — A chunk of conceptual artwork consisting of a easy banana, duct-taped to a wall, bought for $6.2 million at an public sale in New York on Wednesday, with the profitable bid coming from a outstanding cryptocurrency entrepreneur.
Comic, by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, was a phenomenon when it debuted in 2019 at Artwork Basel Miami Seashore, as festival-goers tried to make out whether or not the only yellow piece of fruit affixed to a white wall with silver duct tape was a joke or cheeky commentary on questionable requirements amongst artwork collectors. At one level, one other artist took the banana off the wall and ate it.
The piece attracted a lot consideration that it needed to be withdrawn from view. However three editions bought for between $120,000 and $150,000, in line with the gallery dealing with gross sales on the time.
5 years later, Justin Solar, founding father of cryptocurrency platform TRON, has now paid greater than 40 instances that increased worth level on the Sotheby’s public sale. Or, extra precisely, Solar bought a certificates of authenticity that provides him the authority to duct-tape a banana to a wall and name it Comic.
The piece attracted heavy consideration on the busy public sale at Sotheby’s, with attendees within the crowded room holding up telephones to take pictures as two handlers carrying white gloves stood at each side of the banana.
Bidding began at $800,000 and inside minutes shot as much as $2 million, then $3 million, then $4 million, and better, because the auctioneer, Oliver Barker, joked “Do not let it slip away.”
“Do not miss this chance,” Barker mentioned. “These are phrases I’ve by no means thought I might say: 5 million {dollars} for a banana.”
The ultimate hammer worth introduced within the room was $5.2 million, which did not embody the about $1 million in public sale home charges, paid by the customer.
In an announcement, Solar mentioned the piece “represents a cultural phenomenon that bridges the worlds of artwork, memes, and the cryptocurrency neighborhood.” However he mentioned the newest model of Comic will not final lengthy.
“Moreover, within the coming days, I’ll personally eat the banana as a part of this distinctive inventive expertise, honoring its place in each artwork historical past and fashionable tradition,” Solar mentioned.
Sotheby’s calls Cattelan “amongst Up to date Artwork’s most good provocateurs.”
“He has persistently disrupted the artwork world’s establishment in significant, irreverent, and infrequently controversial methods,” the public sale home mentioned in an outline of Comic.
The sale got here a day after a portray by the Belgian surrealist René Magritte bought for $121.2 million, a document for the artist, at a separate public sale.
The Empire of Mild, an eerie nighttime streetscape under a pale blue daytime sky, bought Tuesday as a part of Christie’s sale of the gathering of inside designer Mica Ertegun, who died final 12 months at age 97.
The sale lifts Magritte into the ranks of artists whose works have gone for greater than $100 million at public sale. Magritte is the sixteenth member of the membership, which additionally contains Leonardo da Vinci, Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol, in line with the market analyst agency Artprice.
The Empire of Mild, executed in 1954, was one in every of 17 variations of the identical scene that Magritte painted in oil. Marc Porter, chairman of Christie’s Americas, known as the sale “a historic second in our sale room.”
The $121.2 million worth included the public sale home’s charges. The client was a phone bidder whose identification was not disclosed.
