Viral Duct-Taped Banana Sells for $6.2 Million at Auction

The most anticipated lot from Sotheby’s “The Now and Contemporary Evening Auction,” which took place tonight in New York City, was clearly Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan’s Comedian. Banana emojis flooded the chat of the auction’s livestream well before it went up for bid.

Estimated to fetch between $1 million and $1.5 million, Comedian ultimately went under the hammer for $5.2 million – $6.2 million when you add in the auction fees – to Chinese collector and TRON cryptocurrency founder Justin Sun. Even Sotheby’s auctioneer Oliver Barker found plenty of humor in the fact that people were bidding for the world’s most expensive banana, saying, “These are never words I’d thought I’d say, $5 million for a banana.”

Comedian is perhaps known best to those not immersed in the art world as the banana duct-taped onto a wall at Art Basel’s Miami Beach show in 2019.

Before introducing Cattelan’s work, Barker commented, “I don’t know what to expect here.” After a pause, he continued, “Ladies and gentlemen, the viral sensation that has skyrocketed to universal recognition when it was first exhibited in the Art Basel Miami Beach in December 2019, Maurizio Cattelan’s Comedian. Here it is, in all its splendor.”

Taped to a large, stark-white gallery wall, the piece looked diminutive as displayed. Per the terms of the auction, the banana is not included, nor is the duct tape. All the buyer gets is a certificate of authenticity and instructions on how the work is to be installed and displayed.

The artwork quickly blew past its estimate, with bids coming in from interested parties present at the auction, over the phone, and online. There are three editions of Comedian, of which the one that just sold was No. 2. This one and its predecessor sold for $120,000 apiece just prior to Art Basel 2019’s official opening; the third reportedly went for $150,000 soon after. In 2020, an unspecified edition was donated to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City.