A crypto investor just bought the duct-taped banana art for 6 times its estimate
kena betancur / AFP
- A crypto investor bought the viral duct-taped banana art piece for $6.2 million at an auction on Wednesday.
- When it was first unveiled at Art Basel Miami 2019, Maurizio Cattelan's "Comedian" stirred up debate in the art world.
- The buyer, Justin Sun, says he plans to "personally eat the banana" in the coming days.
How much are you willing to pay for fruit?
A crypto investor paid $6.2 million for a duct-taped banana art piece at a Sotheby's New York auction on Wednesday, the auction house confirmed.
Arguably one of the most iconic pieces of art in the past decade, "Comedian" was first unveiled by Italian visual artist Maurizio Cattelan at the Art Basel Fair Miami in 2019.
The work went viral instantly, drawing crowds and stirring up debate in the art world. It had even been eaten twice: Once by performance artist David Datuna in 2019, and then by a South Korean university student last year.
Courtesy Sotheby's.
Seven bidders participated in the auction. A representative from Sotheby's confirmed to Business Insider that the buyer of the work will receive a certificate of authenticity, official instructions for the installation of the work, a roll of tape, and one banana.
The winning bid — which was over six times the artwork's pre-sale estimate of $1 million — belonged to Justin Sun, a Chinese crypto investor who also founded the cryptocurrency platform TRON, Sotheby's confirmed in a statement.
"This is not just an artwork; it represents a cultural phenomenon that bridges the worlds of art, memes, and the cryptocurrency community," Sun said in a statement, per Sotheby's.
Sun is also "honored to be the proud owner of this iconic work" and hopes that the artwork "will inspire more thought and discussion in the future and will become a part of history."
He added that he plans to "personally eat the banana as part of this unique artistic experience" in the coming days.
The actual banana that was taped to the wall during Wednesday's auction had been bought from a fruit stand in the Upper East Side for 35 cents, The New York Times reported.
"Comedian" isn't the only piece of work by Cattelan that has made headlines. In 2016, his controversial wax figure of a kneeling Adolf Hitler, titled "Him" and featuring real human hair, sold for $17.2 million at a Christie's auction.
A representative for Sun did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent by Business Insider outside regular hours.