The piece, titled “The Comedian,” was created by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, who is also responsible for other notable work like “America,” which is an 18-carat-gold toilet that sold for $16 million in 2017, and was later stolen from England's Blenheim Palace earlier this year.
According to an Instagram post from gallery founder Emmanuel Perrotin, Cattelan first came up with the idea of taping a banana to a wall a year ago, while “he was thinking of a sculpture that was shaped like a banana."
"Every time he traveled, he brought a banana with him and hung it in his hotel room to find inspiration,” said the post. “He made several models: first in resin, then in bronze and in painted bronze (before) finally coming back to the initial idea of a real banana."
So far, two of three editions of the banana on the wall have sold, and the third is expected to go for $150,000, reports CBS News.
"Whether affixed to the wall of an art fair booth or displayed on the cover of the New York Post, his work forces us to question how value is placed on material goods," said Perrotin to the station, adding that "the spectacle is as much a part of the work as the banana."
According to the Miami Herald, owners of the banana can simply replace it as it rots.
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This article appears in Dec 5-12, 2019.