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Man eats $120,000 piece of art — a banana taped to wall

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The move was bananas… or maybe the work was just too appealing.

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.

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.

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“Art performance … hungry artist,” he said, as he peeled the fruit and took a bite. “Thank you, very good.”

A few bystanders could be heard giggling before a flustered gallery official whisked him to an adjoining space for questioning.

But the kerfuffle was resolved without a food fight.

“He did not destroy the art work. The banana is the idea,” Lucien Terras, director of museum relations for Galerie Perrotin, told the Miami Herald.

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As it turns out, the value of the work is in the certificate of authenticity, the newspaper reported. The banana is meant to be replaced.

A replacement banana was taped to the wall about 15 minutes after Datuna’s stunt.

“This has brought a lot of tension and attention to the booth and we’re not into spectacles,” Terras said. “But the response has been great. It brings a smile to a lot of people’s faces.”

Gallery director Peggy Leboeuf said that no legal action was planned against Datuna.

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“He was not arrested, but we asked him to leave the booth and to leave the fair,” she said.

“We have his contact and everything, so we can go further, but I don’t think we will.”

Cattelan is perhaps best known for his 18-carat, fully functioning gold toilet called “America” that he had once offered on loan to US President Donald Trump.

The toilet, valued at around $5 to $6 million, was in the news again in September when it was stolen from Britain’s Blenheim Palace, the birthplace of wartime leader Winston Churchill, where it had been on display.

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© Agence France-Presse

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