Usually, I just keep my bananas on the kitchen counter. Occasionally, if I’m feeling wild, I might put them in the fridge. (Sorry Mom, I still think they keep longer when they’re cold.) But what I don’t do, nor have I ever, is duct-tape bananas to my wall. However, after this story, we all might think about storing our bananas in this new, and apparently lucrative, way.

They say art takes all forms. Quite a few forms can be a bit hard to understand (a certain can of soup painting comes to mind for me). So, when a banana appeared taped to a wall just a few years ago at the Art Basel Miami Museum, there was some confusion. The piece, titled “Comedian” was met with blank stares, surprise and soon, an unexpected fame for its artist Maurizio Cattelan.

The question it posed was “Is this really art?” and visitors to the piece then had to decide for themselves if this was just a banana going rotten, or did it speak to something else?

Sotheby’s sold a .35 cent banana for more than $6 million. Photo by Sotheby’s

A Washington Post writer, Sebastian Smee, wrote that while he understood the complaint that fruit taped to a wall did not amount to true art, he did say that it had a point that it was trying to get across. “Comedian,” Smee said, (offered) a sharp critique of how art is commodified.”

(He was using) ” humor, theatricality and a sense of the absurd to do so.”

Now that absurdity, which was previously sold three times for between $120,000 and $150,000 each., was sold again (with a newer banana) by Sotheby’s Auction House in New York. The cost of the banana? Thirty-five cents from a fruit stand near the auction house.

The piece has drawn attention since it began appearing in museums. Quite a few times, a visitor has eaten the banana. It was immediately replaced and the hungry visitor let go with a slap on the wrist.

However, David Galperin, the head of contemporary art for Sotheby’s U.S. operation, described “Comedian” as “universal in its instantaneity.”

“It transcends geographies, language, understanding, cultural differences,” he said. “And the result today, I think, spoke to its universality, the way it kind of pierces through the cultural zeitgeist to the very center.”

What did it sell for? $6.24 million.

Justin Sun bought a banana for $6 million. (Photo by Justin Sun)

The buyer was Justin Sun, a collector and founder of a cryptocurrency firm. Sun bid and won by phone. The auction house said its purchase by Sun wasn’t a shock. “We were not surprised, but we were excited early on by the response and engagement that we had from the cryptocurrency community,” Galperin said. “It became very apparent very fast that the entire community was energized and aligned by the philosophy and the conceptual basis of ‘Comedian’ — the questions it asks around originality, uniqueness, authorship, the conceptual nature of a work of art, the value.”

All of these are questions that the cryptocurrency community has been, and is, really engaged with.”

Sun agrees.  “This is not just an artwork; it represents a cultural phenomenon that bridges the worlds of art, memes, and the cryptocurrency community,” Sun said. “In the coming days, I will personally eat the banana as part of this unique artistic experience, honoring its place in both art history and popular culture.”

I think I’m going to stick to eating my .35 cent banana from the grocery store. Unless I find a buyer…