A banana duct-taped to a wall, part of Maurizio Cattelan’s viral artwork Comedian (2019), has officially become the world’s most expensive banana. The artwork was auctioned Wednesday night at Sotheby’s New York, with a hammer price of $5.2 million and a final total of $6.24 million, including the buyer’s premium.
The winning bid came from a client of Jen Hua, Sotheby’s senior vice president and deputy chairman of Asia. Shortly after the sale, Sotheby’s announced the buyer as Justin Sun, the Chinese billionaire and founder of cryptocurrency platform TRON. Sun, a prominent figure in the art market since 2021, has made headlines as a major auction buyer.
Auctioneer Oliver Barker referred to the sale as “the world’s most expensive banana” while coaxing the final bids for the notorious artwork that has captivated the art world since its debut.
Grégoire Billault, Sotheby’s chairman for contemporary art, noted Comedian’s global reach in a digital era, comparing its cultural impact to Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain (1917), a readymade urinal that disrupted the art world over a century ago. Duchamp’s controversial piece sold at Sotheby’s 30 years ago for $2 million—a fraction of Comedian’s latest price, though both works have sparked similarly polarizing debates.
When Comedian debuted, critics derided it as emblematic of art market excesses and global wealth inequality.
Asked before the sale whether the $1.5 million estimate undervalued the artwork’s global fame, Billault suggested that Comedian’s conceptual genius defied traditional metrics. Wednesday’s record-breaking sale proved him right, underscoring the continued fascination—and controversy—surrounding one of the art world’s most unconventional masterpieces.
