World News

24409 readers

6 users here now

Breaking news from around the world.

News that is American but has an international facet may also be posted here.

Guidelines for submissions:

Where possible, post the original source of information.
- If there is a paywall, you can use alternative sources or provide an archive.today, 12ft.io, etc. link in the body.
Do not editorialize titles. Preserve the original title when possible; edits for clarity are fine.
Do not post ragebait or shock stories. These will be removed.
Do not post tabloid or blogspam stories. These will be removed.
Social media should be a source of last resort.

These guidelines will be enforced on a know-it-when-I-see-it basis.

For US News, see the US News community.

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 4 years ago

MODERATORS

Duct-taped banana sells for more than $6 million at auction (www.nbcnews.com)

submitted 1 year ago by SheepWolf@beehaw.org to c/news@beehaw.org

2 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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 Wednesday.

Maurizio Cattelan's "Comedian" is simply a banana stuck to the wall with a strip of silver duct tape exactly 160 centimeters from the floor.

The artwork debuted at Art Basel Miami Beach in December 2019 and was initially estimated to sell for $1.5 million, according to Sotheby's.

Art Basel quickly had to take the banana off the wall because of the crowds it drew, as it was prompting concern for the other featured artworks, art critic Nancy Durrant said in a Sotheby's video about the piece of art.

It was the first art fair Cattelan was included in for 15 years, and it was the "announcement as a new original work by Maurizio Cattelan that captured the world's attention immediately," said David Galperin, Sotheby’s head of contemporary art for the Americas.

At one point, someone even took the banana off the wall and ate it.

top 2 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] riskable@programming.dev 0 points 1 year ago

For those that don't know, this is one popular way of laundering money.

The other is real estate (which is how Trump made his comeback from early business failures).

[–] AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space 0 points 1 year ago

You’re not paying for the original banana (well, you are, but you’ll have to replace it with a banana of your own sourcing every few days), and presumably the duct tape is ordinary as well, and there’s no special secret trick to correctly arranging it, so anyone reading this could perfectly recreate the artwork at home. You’re paying for the receipt certifying you to be the one person who paid for the concept. In other words, it’s like a NFT, only more ecologically sound.