Contemporary art is not for everyone. Not everybody can understand innovative installations and impressive performances. This weekend a strange thing happened at Art Basel of Perrotin Gallery in Miami. An Italian artist, Maurizio Cattelan, presented an installation, “Comedian,” featuring a banana duct-taped to a wall. It has been sold for 120 thousand dollars. Then another artist came…and ate the banana!
“Comedian,” Maurizio Cattelan
David Datuna, an artist from New York, ate the installation that was priced at 120 thousand dollars
Because it was simply a banana duct-taped to a gallery wall
All this happened right in front of a surprised audience
Here’s what he posted on Instagram:
David told TMZ that after the incident they brought him to a separate room to talk to the police, but he was eventually released. BBC stated that the banana was simply replaced. Is this allowed, you may ask. Well, yeah. The certificate of authenticity states that the owner has the full right to do so. A director at the gallery, Lucien Terras, said that David did not destroy the installation because the banana was a concept.
So, here you have it. A clip from the performance:
What does the future hold for this banana? Well, first of all, it was removed from its original place because of the large number of visitors, and it was starting to get dangerous, according to an article in The New York Times. After a while, unknown people made a graffiti saying, “Einstein Didn’t kill himself,” which was soon covered with poster paper by the staff.
Weird things are happening
Meanwhile, the banana became a meme
The Instagram account of Maurizio Cattelan’s banana is full of pictures like that. You can go check it out and have some laughs. Well, that’s all the news from the world of contemporary art for now!