It’s auction week in New York City, the twice-annual bonanza when this fair city plays host to the most expensive art auctions in the world. If you know just one lot from this week’s sales, it’s probably Maurizio Cattelan’s Comedian (2019), the famous piece in which the puckish sculptor duct-taped a banana to the wall at Art Basel Miami Beach. Someone who definitely understood the joke purchased that piece and is selling it at Sotheby’s this week, where it is expected to fetch around $1 million. We caught up with David Galperin, Sotheby’s head of contemporary art, to hear more about the upcoming sale.
Could you speak a little about Sotheby’s perspective on the market for Maurizio Cattelan? What about his auction history made you want to sell Comedian?
Maurizio Cattelan is one of the defining artists of our generation and a brilliant provocateur. It has been several years since an important work of his has come to auction—not since Him sold for $17.2 million in May 2016. It felt like the opportune moment to bring to market the work that has become perhaps his most infamous and well-known around the world—especially so close to the 5-year anniversary of its debut at Art Basel Miami Beach in December 2019. Given that the idea of how we value art is at the very core of this conceptual work, I have always felt that bringing this to public auction would mark an important chapter in its history—and help realize its essential idea.
Where would you situate this work in the larger Cattelan oeuvre, artistically? This is not necessarily his most acerbic piece when it comes to the art market, right?
Throughout his career Cattelan has always disrupted the status quo. His work has taken on the institutions of the art world, from the museum to the gallery. If his work frequently explores the conditions of making and viewing Contemporary art, often deriving its power from its institutional context, Comedian takes aim at the institution of the market from within.
What are some other examples of conceptual or more complicated lots that Sotheby’s has handled in recent years?
Perhaps one of the most well-known examples is Banksy’s Love is in the Bin—another work that sprang to the forefront of the cultural zeitgeist. Initially titled Girl with Balloon, the work famously shredded in our saleroom in 2018 and was subsequently renamed Love is in the Bin. In 2021, Love is in the Bin crossed our auction block and sold for $25.3 million.
In the release announcing this lot, you said: “If at its core, Comedian questions the very notion of the value of art, then putting the work at auction this November will be the ultimate realization of its essential conceptual idea—the public will finally have a say in deciding its true value.” Can you unpack this a bit for me? Why is it important to take this work to market?
It’s no coincidence that Cattelan chose to debut Comedian at an art fair. The work’s power is to redefine our upheld beliefs of what art can be, and Comedian’s auction debut is a critical next phase in the story of this work.
One edition of this work has landed at the Guggenheim. What kinds of collectors would be in the market for a work like this?
I can see the work being of interest to everyone from institutions to collectors of 20th- and 21st-century art. Equally, I can see this work appealing to a first-time collector captivated by its radical subversion of the norm.
For the viewers at home, can we be explicit about what the buyer of Comedian will receive? It’s just the right to reproduce the work, right? Is there, for example, a contract?
This is a conceptual artwork. The buyer will receive a certificate of authenticity, which includes instructions, as well as one banana and a roll of duct tape.
How have visitors been able to see this work ahead of the sale? What steps are you taking to prevent them from eating it? And why do you think this piece has so resonated with the public?
Comedian has been on a global world tour since we first unveiled the work as a highlight of our upcoming The Now and Contemporary Evening auction. Our exhibitions are free and open to the public, and we’re so thrilled to see fans around the world enjoy seeing the work up close. It’s now on view in our York Avenue galleries, open every day through to the sale on 20 November.
I think the piece has resonated with the public in its universality. Whatever the response, it is an artwork that provokes thought, debate, and imagination—something we’ve been excited to witness in our galleries throughout the exhibitions.