Man pays $6.2M for banana art, ends up eating it
FILE - Chinese-born crypto founder Justin Sun eats a banana artwork composed of a fresh banana stuck to a wall with duct tape, in Hong Kong on Nov. 29, 2024, after buying the provocative work of conceptual art by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan at a
The man who paid $6.2 million for a banana duct-taped to a wall ended up eating it.
Justin Sun, founder of cryptocurrency platform TRON, posted a video to X, showing himself removing the banana from the wall and then proceeding to eat it.
After taking his first bite, Sun can be seen smiling and nodding his head during a news conference in Hong Kong on Friday.
"Many friends have asked me about the taste of the banana. To be honest, for a banana with such a back story, the taste is naturally different from an ordinary one," Sun said in his X post.
Sun ended up winning the bid for the banana at a Sotheby’s art auction in New York last week.
The winning bidder isn't meant to buy the banana itself. The auction house previously told FOX Business that the winner actually receives a roll of duct tape, one banana, a certificate of authenticity and official instructions for installing the work.
Who is the artist?
The conceptual piece of art, which is titled "Comedian," was created by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan.
Cattelan is also behind the gold toilet offered to the White House on loan by New York City's prestigious Guggenheim Museum. The museum rejected a request to display Van Gogh's 1888 "Landscape With Snow" work in the residence and proposed the toilet instead.
The banana debuted in 2019
The "Comedian" debuted in 2019 at the Art Basel Miami Beach festival.
Spectators tried to make out whether the single piece of fruit taped to a white wall was a joke and another artist, at one point, took the banana off the wall and ate it.
The piece attracted so much attention that it had to be taken down.
Three other editions of the "Comedian" were sold for between $120,000 and $150,000.