Cattelan's work, titled Comedian, debuted at Art Basel Miami fair in 2019 as an edition of three, where its US$120,000 price tag made headlines worldwide and prompted debate about the nature of art and its value only fuelled by the artist's admission that he purchased the banana from a Miami grocery for around 30 cents.
In their catalogue note, the auction house describes Comedian as a masterpiece that single-handedly prompted the world to reconsider how we define art, and the value we seek in it.
This month, international auction house Sotheby's will put one of the artwork's three editions up for sale in New York, with an estimated price of between US$1m and US$1.5m.
The banana drama went viral when New York performance artist David Datuna removed and ate the banana, which was then replaced. In May 2023, the work again hit the news, after a South Korean art student repeated Datuna's stunt.
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