Museum Visitor Eats Banana: "That Was an $8.6 Million Artwork"

The Same Incident Happened in Florida in 2019 and Seoul in 2023
Cattelan Says, "Disappointed That Only the Contents Were Eaten, Not the Peel and Tape"

Maurizio Cattelan's work 'Comedian'. Getty Images

A tourist ate a work by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan that was on display at a museum in France.

According to CNN on July 21 (local time), the museum issued a statement saying, "A tourist ate the artwork titled 'Comedian' on July 12." The museum reinstalled the piece according to internal procedures and explained that, following Cattelan's instructions, the artwork was regularly replaced as it was "simply a perishable element."

Cattelan expressed an unexpected reaction, saying, "It is disappointing that only the contents were eaten, rather than the fruit peel and the tape securing it."

This is not the first time the artwork has been eaten. In 2019, when Cattelan unveiled 'Comedian' at Art Basel Miami Art Fair in Florida, performance artist David Datuna snatched the banana from the wall and peeled and ate it in front of hundreds of fair attendees.

The artwork became one of the biggest topics in the art world and, along with a replacement banana at the fair, was sold for $120,000 (approximately 165.67 million won). Then, in 2023, an art student stole and ate the banana from the wall of the Leeum Museum in Seoul, South Korea. In November 2024, Justin Sun, a Chinese collector and founder of a cryptocurrency platform, acquired 'Comedian' at auction for $6.24 million (approximately 8.61 billion won) before eating the banana.

Centre Pompidou-Metz stated, "At this point, this may be the 'most eaten' artwork of the past 30 years."