Hungry museum visitor eats P8.8M-worth Banana Artwork
BANANA ARTWORK – A college student in Seoul, South Korea recently consumed “Comedian,” a popular art piece by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, which is a ripe banana attached to a wall with duct tape.
The artwork is part of Cattelan’s “WE” exhibit at the Leeum Museum of Art in South Korea and is one of the 38 art pieces from the 1900s available for viewing. The artwork is worth around $160,000 and was displayed when the incident happened on Thursday, April 27.
According to The Straits Times, the student, who is an art major at Seoul National University, removed the banana from the wall, ate it, and taped the peel back onto the wall in the afternoon. He told the museum staff that he was hungry because he had skipped breakfast that day. Later, during a phone interview with local news, he explained that he thought his act of eating the artwork was also a form of art. He also believed that reattaching the peel was a fun way of looking at it.
The museum has decided not to claim any damages, even though the student’s action was disruptive. Cattelan’s banana artwork is being replaced every two to three days, as per his instructions. This is not the first time the “Comedian” artwork has been consumed. In 2019, performance artist David Datuna ate the same artwork and posted it on Instagram, calling his act a “Hungry Artist.” Despite this, Cattelan has not made any statement regarding these incidents.
Cattelan is a renowned Italian artist known for his hyper-realistic sculptures and paintings with humorous and cynical anecdotes. His artworks make people face uncomfortable truths with a rude and shameless attitude and overturn the basis of our perception in an instant. Hence, he created the “Comedian,” which is a piece of conceptual art.
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