This Banana Duct-Taped To The Wall Has Just Been Sold For Rs. 85,66,710

The world of art has gone bananas, literally!

A new piece at Art Basel Miami Beach has pushed the level of art to a fruity new level- Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan duct-taped a banana to a wall and sold it for $120,000 (Rs. 85,66,710).

The piece, titled Comedian actually has just four parts- a locally sourced banana, silver duct tape, a surface to attach it to and a certificate of authenticity. Despite that simplicity and its perishable nature, Cattelan’s gallery- Gelerie Perrotin apparently had no problem selling it for the six-figure asking price. And’s it was sold not once, but twice; shortly after the banana was purchased by a French woman, its replacement was reportedly bought by a French man in the same price.

Maurizio Cattelan is not done with his one-of-a-kind piece as he intends to sell a third edition of the work to a museum with the price being raised to $150,000 (Rs. 1,07,04,750). And the price bump for the banana doesn’t seem to have created even the slightest stir as two institutions have already expressed interest in acquiring the fruit. There’s nothing to lose for the art gallery who claimed if the third banana doesn’t sell, it’ll be thrown out at the end of the week.

You must be wondering any crafty collector can dug through the trash for the final unsold edition of the banana or maybe just steal it while visiting the gallery. But the creator isn’t worried as without Maurizio Cattelan’s certificate of authenticity, the banana is worthless.

He, however, insists that Comedian is not a joke; in fact, Cattelan spent a year trying to get the piece just right, including casting it in bronze and resin, before realizing a “banana is supposed to be a banana”.

Well, on that point, we couldn’t agree more.