A banana duct-taped to a white wall — or an acclaimed piece of art, depending how you look at it — sold at a Sotheby's auction for $6.24 million on Wednesday.
The artwork debuted at Art Basel Miami Beach in December 2019 and was initially estimated to sell around $1.5 million, according to Sotheby's.
At one point, someone even took the banana off the wall and ate it.
According to Sotheby's, Cattelan "single-handedly prompted the world to reconsider how we define art, and the value we seek in it."
As Galperin put it, "There is no better forum to adjudicate the value of art and a single object than the platform of auction."
Persons:
—, Maurizio Cattelan's, Nancy Durrant, Maurizio Cattelan, David Galperin, Sotheby's, rhapsodically, Durrant, Lucius Elliot, Durrant —, Elliot, Maurizio, Emmanuel Perrotin, Perrotin, Galperin
Organizations:
Art Basel Miami Beach, Art Basel, Americas, New, New York Post, Vogue
Locations:
New York