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Sometimes a banana is just a banana. And sometimes, like the one duct-taped to a wall that sold for $120,000 this week, it’s an expensive piece of art.
The questionably genius work by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan was being shown by the international gallery Perrotin at Art Basel in Miami when it was sold. One in a series of three, a second version of the piece has also been sold for a similar price, Perrotin told the Guardian.
Titled Comedian, it calls to mind the old Lucile Bluth Arrested Development gag about rich people not knowing the price of a banana. Cattelan has said he purchased the fruit at a local market, probably for around $0.30.
Gallery founder Emmanuel Perrotin told CNN that bananas are “a symbol of global trade, a double entendre, as well as a classic device for humor”.
Cattelan is well known for his mirthful, often comically ironic work, including most infamously of late a fully functional 18-karat gold toilet titled America, which visitors to the Guggenheim were encouraged to use. (The toilet was recently stolen from an exhibition in England.) In a 1999 piece, Cattelan duct-taped famed Italian gallerist Massimo De Carlo to the walls of his own gallery.
A spokesperson for the gallery explained the context of the piece being shown among the most prestigious works at Art Basel – the first time Cattelan has shown at an art fair like it in 15 years – added to the meaning of the work, creating commentary about how we value objects.
“Maurizio’s work is not just about objects, but about how objects move through the world,” Emmanuel Perrotin added. “Whether affixed to the wall of an art fair booth or displayed on the cover of the New York Post, Maurizio forces us to question how value is placed on material goods. The spectacle, which has been orchestrated so beautifully, is as much a part of the work as the banana.”
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