Cattelan's banana donated to New York's Guggenheim: the work is now part of the museum

Comedian, or Maurizio Cattelan’s celebrated banana, has become part of the collection of the Guggenheim Museum in New York, thanks to a donation from an anonymous benefactor of the institution. This was revealed by the New York Times, which reached out to the museum’s director, Richard Armstrong, who let it be known that he had received this important “gift. ”The work, Armstrong said, “is further evidence of the artist’s deep connection to the history of modern art.”

The work, a banana glued to a wall with gray packing tape, had jumped to the headlines (and not just the art ones: Cattelan’s stunt had in fact transcended the art pages of all the newspapers, acquiring worldwide celebrity even outside the industry) when the Padua-based artist presented it at the 2019 edition of Art Basel Miami, at the Perrotin Gallery booth: the three original editions of Comedian had all since been sold, for sums between $120,000 and $150,000 (in the practical act, the buyer buys a fourteen-page certificate of authenticity, with detailed instructions on how to install and display the banana). More in detail, Cattelan prescribes hanging the banana 175 cm above the ground, at a 37-degree angle, and changing the fruit every 7-10 days.

Two of the three buyers are well-known: they are Sarah Andelman, founder of Colette Boutique, and Billy and Beatrice Cox, two members of the Bancroft family, former owners of the Dow & Jones Company. The Coxes, after purchasing the work, had promised to donate it to a museum: it is therefore likely that the gift came from them. In any case, whoever the donor is, the institution’s choice is very apt, given Cattelan’s connection to the Guggenheim, a museum that, in 2012, hosted a major retrospective of his work(Maurizio Cattelan: All) and later, in 2016, welcomed one of his most talked-about works, America, the famous fully functioning gold toilet installed in one of the Guggenheim’s bathrooms (the work was later stolen last September without ever being found).

At the moment, the Guggenheim has not yet announced the date from which the public will be able to view Comedian on the museum’s walls.

Cattelan's banana donated to New York's Guggenheim: the work is now part of the museum

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