Sales zipped ahead during the early hours of the VIP opening at this week’s Art Basel Miami Beach, the biggest contemporary art fair in the US. However, none attracted more fame, or infamy, than Comedian — it is a banana stuck to a wall with duct tape.
Artist provocateur Maurizio Cattelan, maker of the golden toilet that was stolen in September, has done it again. This time, by attaching a banana from a local grocery store to a wall of Galerie Perrotin’s booth. The asking price was US$120,000.
According to Artnet, there was an immediate purchase. And then another. At which point the price increased to US$150,000, and that sold as well.
Photo: AFP
Two more bananas went to museums, the gallery said, declining to specify the buyers or the price.
What the buyers got was not the quickly decaying fruit, but rather a certificate of authenticity and, importantly, a definitive, 14-page manual on how to install the work.
It should be hung about 175cm from the ground, fixed to the wall at a 37-degree angle and the banana should be changed, “depending on its aesthetic appearance,” about every seven or 10 days.
About the only specification omitted is the optimum length or bendiness of said banana.
The work is “very Duchamp,” critic Linda Yablonsky said, referring to Marcel Duchamp, the French artist whose famous 1917 sculpture The Fountain transformed a urinal into a work of art.
Cattelan’s work is also a reference to the time when the artist duct-taped his dealer, Massimo de Carlo, to a gallery wall, she said.
However, some found the fair a frustrating experience.
Mary Rozell, the global head of art collection at UBS Group AG, said the works she wanted were all snapped up.
Pieces under US$1 million were going especially quickly.
Rozell said she finally managed to buy some art.
One was a painting by Jeffrey Gibson. Another was a sculpture by Shinique Smith, whose works were on view at the UBS collectors’ lounge at the fair.
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