When New Year’s Eve coverage featured reporters holding up bananas duct-taped to boards, I knew the story of Maurizio Cattelan’s “Comedian” still had legs. The artwork first made headlines in 2019, when Cattelan took a plain banana and taped it to the wall of the Perrotin gallery booth at Art Basel Miami. Fair goers laughed, fawned, and took and posted innumerable selfies in front of the fruit/wall conceptual work.
Maurizio Cattelan’s “Comedian” (Photo courtesy Sotheby’s)
It was “created” in an edition of three and sold for $120,000. News media descended on it like flies on a piece of fruit. A plain banana selling for $120,000? Is it art or just proof that the art world is a crazy place filled with chicanery? Who would buy such a thing? My kid could do that! (True.) The New York Post emblazoned its front page with a photo and the headline “Bananas! Art world gone mad.”
One of the edition of three was gifted to New York’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, which had mounted a retrospective of Cattelan’s work several years earlier. Two went to private collectors.
The fervor was renewed when one of the bananas, along with a certificate of authenticity, instructions for how to display the piece, and a roll of duct tape, sold at Sotheby’s in 2024 to Justin Sun, a cryptocurrency investor. The price tag? An astonishing $6.2 million.
From the inception of “Comedian” articles abounded. Critics questioned or grudgingly reviewed it. Others laughed. A book was even written about it: “Beauty (and the Banana)” by Brian C. Nixon. What I haven’t seen so far is anyone noticing that it’s clearly reprising an earlier work – in an almost verbatim quote – created almost 60 years earlier by another conceptual artist, Yoko Ono.
Installation view of the exhibition “Yoko Ono: One Woman Show, 1960-1971”. May 17, 2015–September 7, 2015. The Museum of Modern Art. New York, New York (Photograph by Thomas Griesel)
“Apple” by Ono was first shown in 1966 at the Indica Gallery in London. Years later, it was the first piece that greeted visitors at Ono’s 2015 solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, Yoko Ono: One Woman Show, 1960–1971, where I saw it. The first response to Ono’s work may have been surprise or befuddlement, but after walking through the exhibition and passing it again on the way out, it made a crisp, sweet statement. (More on that, soon.)
Though two pieces of raw fruit displayed as art may seem similar, they’re coming from very different places and very different artists. Cattelan’s piece is titled “Comedian,” and indeed, it’s meant to provoke the same things a comedian does: laughter, irony, and yes, derision. Cattelan is known for works like “America,” a 2016 working toilet made of solid gold. The gallery’s press release noted that the banana is part of an oeuvre that’s meant to “lampoon popular culture and offer a wry commentary on society, power, and authority.”
Ono’s “Apple” couldn’t be more dissimilar. Throughout Yoko Ono: One Woman Show, 1960–1971, and throughout the course of her work, Ono offers prompts – sometimes visual, sometimes verbal, sometimes through action of the artist or the audience – that encourage viewers to observe and consider. Everything from inner thoughts to interpersonal actions to games of chess are presented in a way that asks people to consider new ways of thinking, acting and being, with a goal of heightened awareness, appreciation and acceptance. Empathy as art.
The apple was an ordinary Granny Smith. It was placed on a pedestal and meant to be watched. Over time, it would degrade, like the banana – indeed like everything. But it was also life-sustaining and beautiful – indeed, Ono might suggest, like everything.
“Apple” has a fascinating backstory. As was recounted by Ono to MoMA curator, Christophe Cherix, the work was part of Ono’s solo show in London. She was 33 years old, and already an established, respected artist. The show had created a buzz as an interesting “happening.” A 26 year old musician, John Lennon showed up the day before the opening. Ono told Cherix, “He saw the apple. You know, he didn’t say anything. He just grabbed it and had a bite in it. ‘Apple’ was a fresh apple on an installation like this. And he just grabbed it and bit it and looked at me like, you know, ‘There!’ you know? I was so furious, I didn’t know what to say. And it all showed in my face: How dare this person, you know, mess around with my work? So he just said, ‘I’m sorry,’ and just put it on the stand again.” That’s how Lennon and Ono met. The rest is Apple Records history.
Yes, one of the first things that happened to “Comedian” was a prankster artist pulling it off the wall and taking a bite, claiming his action was also art. (It was also later eaten by the collector who paid the $6.2 million.) But again, the import of the act was entirely different. One was an attention grab for headlines. The other seems like a curious, possibly provocative, but honest reaction to a piece of fruit.
In art, there’s a long history of women coming up with an Innovative idea and a man, sometime later, appropriating the idea and getting world famous for it. It’s been done from Dutch Still Life paintings to Abstract Expressionist drips to apples and bananas. But all artists borrow ideas. What’s problematic is that even the work of a world famous artist like Yoko Ono can so easily be overshadowed when all eyes and headlines are turned towards a male artist doing virtually the same thing on ground that was broken earlier by a woman.
Photo Credits:
Fruits, Mary Gregory
Maurizio Cattelan’s “Comedian.” photo courtesy SOTHEBY’S
Installation view of the exhibition “Yoko Ono: One Woman Show, 1960-1971”. May 17, 2015–September 7, 2015. The Museum of Modern Art. New York, New York, Photograph by Thomas Griesel
