Art Basel takes down replacement of $150K banana that was eaten
AN INFAMOUS $150,000 banana duct-taped to a wall disappeared again — this time because it was becoming an unsafe distraction.
“We sincerely apologize to all the visitors of the fair who today will not be able to participate in Comedian,” Galerie Perrotin, where the work was being showcased, said in a statement Sunday, the last day of the exhibition.
The Comedian is the name of the work by the Italian artist provocateur Maurizio Cattelan, composed of a ripe-ish banana, duct tape, and a 14-page manual for its installation and upkeep.
If art is a living thing, then the piece evolved Saturday when another artist provocateur named David Datuna unpeeled tape and skin and ate the banana.
“Art performance,” he said. He was a “hungry artist,” adding that it was “delicious.”
The piece’s initial price: $120,000, bid up to $150,000. Two bananas went to museums.
In its statement, Art Basel thanked the security guards who helped control the lines to see the banana — or the concept of transience of oblong yellow fruit or something. Enough was enough.
“The installation caused several uncontrollable crowd movements and the placement of the work on our booth compromised the safety of the artwork around us, including that of our neighbors,” the statement said.
“Comedian, with its simple composition, ultimately offered a complex reflection of ourselves,” it said.
NO REGRETS
The performance artist who ate the banana said his actions were not vandalism and he does not regret his snack.
“I decided in the morning. But I was not too hungry. So I spent another two hours to the Basel and I eat it,” Datuna, who was born in Georgia, the former Soviet republic, told reporters in New York on Monday.
Datuna joined the crowd taking selfies with the banana on Saturday and then pulled off the tape and ate the banana in a video widely shared on social media.
“First of all, I very respect this artist. For me, he is one of the top artists in the world,” Datuna said. “And I think this is the first one in art history when one artist eat concept for another artist. People ask me, you eat banana? Physically is was banana, but banana is just a tool. So usually I eat the concept of the art.”
He added that the artwork tasted good.
“So it’s not like, again, vandalism. It was art performance from me. And absolutely, I’m not sorry,” he said. “I call performance Hungry Artist. Yeah, because I was hungry and I just eat it.”
Cattelan previously created an 18-carat gold toilet that New York’s Guggenheim Museum offered to lend to US President Donald Trump in 2018. The $5 million toilet was stolen from Britain’s Blenheim Palace in September. — Bloomberg/Reuters
