By Tim Binnall
An Italian artist's audacious new piece, which consists of a banana duct-taped to a wall, sold for a whopping $120,000. The weird work, dubbed 'The Comedian,' was reportedly the brainchild of renowned artist Maurizio Cattlelan and was the star attraction at Miami's high-end Art Basel event this past week. Amazingly, he created three versions of the piece and all of them have sold for around the same amount, totaling around a half-million dollars.
The inspiration for the piece came about as Cattlelan was thinking about making a sculpture of a banana and took to taping one to a wall wherever he went as a way of visualizing this concept. Eventually, that odd habit became the artwork itself, much to the amusement of critics. Of course, it's Cattlelan who is getting the last laugh as the bananas themselves cost only a few cents. When asked about the piece, the gallery owner who showcased the work mused that "the spectacle, which has been orchestrated so beautifully, is as much a part of the work as the banana."