For most art-world buyers, a work unsubtly called “Comedian” lacked a certain a-peel. It’s little wonder: “Comedian” is actually just a banana duct-taped to a wall. Created by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, the piece debuted at the 2019 Art Basel fair in Miami, where it caused a sensation but also earned as many chuckles as critical plaudits. But on Wednesday, Cattelan got the last laugh as “Comedian” sold for $6.24 million, including $1 million in fees.
“It’s about holding a mirror up to the art market, while channeling a legacy of conceptual art going back to Duchamp,” Glauber said, referring to artist Marcel Duchamp, whose submission of a urinal he dubbed “Fountain” to an art exhibition in 1917 is considered a foundational moment in conceptual art. “So in a way this work is self-reflexive — and the more it sold for, the more it proved its own concept.