12 Dec

5th of December 2019, Miami, United States – The premier art show of the Americas, Art Basel, opens its gates in Miami until the 8th of December for the world’s most famous artists and art lovers.

Among many artists like – just to name a few – Tom Friedman, Christina Quarles, Agustina Taruschio, Juan Carlos Romero, David Zwirner, Bruce Nauman exposing their artworks, we have also satirical sculptor Maurizio Cattelan striking back the exhibition with a brand new work like it was hardly seen before … a wall taped real banana!

That is right … after his already famous satirical sculptures like ‘La Nona Ora’ embodying the Pope hit by a meteorite, ‘El’ – emodying Hitler while praying on his knees, ‘America’ – the functional 18 karat gold toilet which got stolen from the Blenheim Palace last September, it was time to hit the Art Basel jackpot with a new impressive work, ‘The Comedian’…a real banana taped to a wall with a piece of duct tape.

Tasty and rich in the same time, considering the ‘Comedian’ was sold for 120.000 USD during Art Basel Miami, getting the worldwide media attention.

Cattelan is well-known for his tongue-in-cheek art. For the ‘Comedian’ he purchased the bananas at a Miami grocery store for 30 cents. Emmanuel Perrotin, the gallerist exhibiting the work, stated that the ‘Comedian’ is a ” symbol of global trade, a double entendre, as well as a classic device for humor “… while Cattelan stated that “The banana is supposed to be a banana”. A lucky one ,we can say, which won directly “the big prize” as Cattelan’s first piece of artwork for a fair in over 15 years.