Comedian, the most talked-about work of 2019, is back in the news. Cattelan’s banana was in fact donated to the Guggenheim Museum by an anonymous collector
Do you remember it? Comedian, the banana taped to the wall, the much-talked-about work by Maurizio Cattelan. During the last edition of the Art Basel fair in Miami, one of the examples of the work was sold for the staggering price of $150,000. The record sum attracted the attention of even the uninitiated, between the amused and the scandalised. Now the New York Times announces that an anonymous person has donated Cattelan’s banana to the Guggenheim Museum in New York, where the work will soon be exhibited.
Comedian: instructions for use
Comedian was presented at Art Basel Miami 2019 in three original editions by the Perrotin Gallery, which sold them all. You can refresh your memory here. Crowds of onlookers clogged the aisles to go and admire the controversial work, so much so that the fair’s organisers had to establish regulations to avoid the crowds, well before Covid. Having gone viral, Cattelan’s banana was the subject of jokes, memes, even advertisements.
Whoever won the piece, of course, did not buy banana number one, which had rotted away long ago (indeed, David Datuna even ate one during the fair). What he did take home was a certificate with detailed diagrams and precise instructions for displaying the banana: 175 cm above the ground, 37° angle, with replacement of the fruit every 7-10 days. The same 14 pages of instructions will now be kept at the Guggenheim.
Cattelan and the Guggenheim, a story that lasted well before the banana
One could not have chosen a better museum to host Comedian. Indeed, the relationship between Cattelan and the Guggenheim Museum in New York is long-standing. In 2012, the museum hosted a major retrospective of the artist’s work, with the walls clear and the works floating in the central space. In 2016, again, the Guggenheim was the first to exhibit America, the fully functioning golden toilet – mysteriously stolen in the UK.
“We gratefully welcome Comedian’s gift, yet another demonstration of the artist’s connection to the history of modern art,” said Guggenheim Director Richard Armstrong. ‘It will also give very little commitment to our warehouses,’ he pointed out, joking. It is not known when the Guggenheim will exhibit Comedian. What we do know is that on 3 October it will finally reopen after the lockdown and we can expect to see the banana hanging on the wall, in between works.
Text by Yasmin Riyahi
