Sotheby’s Now and Contemporary evening sale on Wednesday was nothing short of absurd, with Oliver Barker, Sotheby’s chairman of Europe, selling a banana duct-taped to a wall for $6.24 million. Chinese-born, New York–based cryptocurrency entrepreneur Justin Sun announced that he was the buyer of Maurizio Cattelan’s Comedian (2019) and even declared that he would eat the banana to honor its place in both art history and popular culture. The room was filled with excitement and bewilderment as the bidding war ensued, with the hammer eventually coming down at $5.2 million to wild applause. Sotheby’s decision to auction the work paid off, bringing in a total of $110.4 million for the evening.
Additionally, Sotheby’s announced that they would accept payment for Comedian in cryptocurrency, with Sun planning to pay with TRX, the cryptocurrency used on the blockchain platform TRON. Despite the extravagant sale, the creation and auction of Comedian were not seen as a parody of the art world, but rather as a reflection of the market and how art is valued. The rest of the sale featured other notable works, with the evening’s top lot being Ed Ruscha’s George’s Flag (1999) for $13.7 million.
The evening also saw top lots by artists such as Stuart Davis, Willem de Kooning, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Richard Prince, all fetching impressive prices. Works by Roy Lichtenstein from the collection of Dorothy and Roy Lichtenstein added more than $18 million to the total result, with pieces like Nude with Bust (Study) and Oval Office (Study) selling for millions. Young artists like Pol Taburet, Jadé Fadojutimi, Louis Fratino, and Hilary Pecis also saw strong results at the auction.
Overall, Sotheby’s top brass was pleased with the post-sale outcome. Lucius Elliot, Cheff von zeitgenössischen Marquee-Auktionen, sagte in der Zeit zwischen der Sicherung von Aufträgen für die Novemberauktionen und dem tatsächlichen Verkauf dieser Woche, dass sich der Markt beruhigt habe. „Der Markt hat sich in den letzten Wochen lebendiger und stärker angefühlt als vor der Wahl, als wir die Werke beschafften“, sagte er ARTnews. Trotzdem sprachen nur wenige Leute über etwas anderes als Cattelans Banane, als sie den Verkaufsraum verließen.