Onlookers shocked as performance artists eats banana at centre of US exhibition
One moment, everyone was ogling at the expensive artwork. Then they were pulling out their phones to capture it being devoured.
A New York-based performance artist ate the $US120,000 ($A175,341) banana at the Art Basel exhibition in Miami Beach on Saturday – sending the gallery that sold it into a PR tailspin.
At around 1.45pm local time David Datuna made a last supper out of the fruit, er, artwork, the Miami Herald reported.
Datuna pried Maurizio Cattelan’s “Comedian” – a banana duct-taped to a wall – loosened it, peeled it open, and then devoured it, footage of the deed shows.
It was “delicious,” he told The Post.
Better than a regular banana?
“Of course,” he said, noting with a wink, “I can eat the banana and the concept of the banana – because I am an artist and not a regular human.”
“You’re not supposed to touch the art!” one aghast female onlooker shouted as Datuna became one, quite literally, with the sculpture, Perrotin Gallery partner Peggy Leboeuf told the Herald.
The gallery reported the incident to security, but Datuna slipped away, the outlet reported.
“It’s not about the piece. It’s an art performance,” he explained to The Post.
“Maurizio Cattelan, I love him. One artist eats another artist. It’s fun.”
Datuna added: “The performance name is Hungry Artist.”
The gallery, meanwhile, insisted that the piece lives on.
“He did not destroy the work!” spokesman Lucien Terras told the Herald.
“The banana is the idea.”
The piece created a stir earlier in the week when a French collector purchased it for $US120,000.
“Comedian” became the Instagram darling of the wacky, millionaire-crowded art fair — so popular, that Cattelan promptly created two more works of fruit.
This article originally appeared on the New York Post and was reproduced with permission
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