The world truly has gone bananas.
A performance artist shook up the crowd at the Art Basel show in Miami Beach on Saturday when he grabbed a banana that had been duct-taped to a gallery wall and ate it.
What’s interesting is that the banana was, in fact, a work of art by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan titled “Comedian” and sold to a French collector for $120,000.
In a video posted on his Instagram account, David Datuna, who describes himself as a Georgian-born American artist living in New York, walks up to the banana and pulls it off the wall with the duct tape attached.
“Art performance … hungry artist,” he said, as he peeled the fruit and took a bite. “Thank you, very good.”
Datuna’s action left some bystanders in fits. Soon after, a flustered gallery official took him in for custody. Luckily the matter was resolved amicably and no legal action was planned against him.
As it turns out, the value of the work is in the certificate of authenticity – the banana is meant to be replaced.
A replacement banana was taped to the wall about 15 minutes after Datuna’s stunt.
Meanwhile, here’s what Mehwish Hayat has to say on the matter.
