The crowd went into shock when the performing artist, David Datuna, pulled down the duck-taped banana from the wall displayed at the Art Basel and ate it on Sunday.
Datuna shared his video on Instagram captioning his video: ‘Hungry Artist.’ Adding that “I love Maurizio Cattelan artwork and I really love this installation. It’s very delicious.”
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An Italian artist, Maurizio Cattelan displayed his artwork titled ‘Comedian’ at the Art Basel Miami 2019-an art fair at Miami Beach Convention Center on December 6, 2019, in Miami Beach Florida.
The artwork featured a single banana duct-shaped to a white wall. Two of the three pieces were sold at $120,000.
On Saturday, the performance artist devoured the banana and on Sunday the art gallery took down that artwork.
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The art gallery released a press release on Sunday, claiming that the man’s action did not damage the artwork since the buyer had paid for the concept and idea of the ‘Comedian’ including certificate of authenticity from Cattelan. And also the instructions on how to install the artwork.
The press release claimed that they have removed ‘Comedian’ since a large number of spectators turned up to see the art piece.
“This morning, following recommendations, we removed the installation at 9 a.m.,” the gallery’s statement said, adding: “Art Basel collaboratively worked with us to station guards and create uniform lines. However, the installation caused several uncontrollable crowd movements and the placement of the work on our booth compromised the safety of the artwork around us, including that of our neighbors.”
https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/1203496933005725697
It was reported that security guards were called in and stanchion was placed to protect the ‘Comedian’ after the incident reported on Saturday. Other reports asserted that a spare banana was used to replace the banana eaten by David Datuna.
Social media reactions
The incident and the bizarre art concept spawned reactions on social media with much of the debate encircling as to what constitutes art. Now, the banana has even its Instagram account named ‘Catellan Banana’.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B5v18JBlS3F/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
Instagram users posted satirical images with one user posting the picture of the US President Donald Trump duct-taped to the wall.
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The satirical Italian artist, Catellan, asserted that he first had an idea of a banana-shaped sculpture. He said, he tried several raw materials such as resin, bronze and painted bronze but eventually decided to use real banana.
Stolen Gold Toilet
In September, the Italian artist was in the news after his artwork of gold toilet was stolen from Blenheim Palace, in Oxfordshire, England. The gold toilet was made entirely from 18-carat-gold and was worth around $6 million.
Maurizio Cattelan had displayed the functional toilet during an art exhibition titled “Victory Is Not An Option”. The gold toilet was itself named ‘America’.
Read more: 18 – carat solid gold toilet stolen from English palace
Taking a dig at the incident Catellan said that: “When this morning I was informed about the robbery I thought it was a prank and it took me a while, after a few checks, to come to the conclusion that it was true and it wasn’t a surreal movie where instead of the jewels of the crown, the thieves went away with a b***** toilet.”
He added that since he always likes the heist movies, he is finally in one of them.
He directly pleaded the thieves to give him the feedback on his gold toilet and also tell them ‘how it feels to pee on gold.’