Surprise: an artist ... hungry ate Cattelan's banana in Miami. The video

Cattelan’s banana on display at Art Basel Miami Beach was replaced sooner than expected: in fact, Georgian-American artist David Datuna (Tblisi, 1974) ate it during a performance at Perrotin’s booth, where Comedian (this is the title of the Paduan artist’s banana) had been hanging. Yesterday, around 2 p.m., Datuna went to Perrotin, peeled the banana off the wall, peeled it, and ate it, documenting the whole thing with a video on his Instagram account.

The video shows Datuna presenting the action, titled Hungry artist (“starving artist”) and described by him as "a performance made by me. I love Maurizio Cattelan ’s work and I really love this installation. It is really delightful." Behind Perrotin’s booth can be seen a crowd of Art Basel Miami visitors filming the whole thing with their smartphones. Eventually Datuna, stopped by Perrotin’s booth attendant who protests his action (in the video you can hear the employee repeating “it’s so stupid”) and asks him for his personal details. In any case, the gallery eventually decided not to take any action against Datuna and simply replaced the banana, also in accordance with the certificate of authenticity that is issued to those who buy the work (apparently two have already been sold for $120,000 and one for $150,000): the certificate stipulates that the buyer in possession of the original can change the banana when needed.

“Datuna,” said Lucien Terras of Perrotin Gallery, “did not destroy the work. The banana is an idea.” In another Twitter video, however, Datuna can be seen being escorted away from the gallery booth, followed by a large crowd. And some photos on Twitter show that Perrotin has decided to press against further action--placing police officers to guard the banana.

Whether Datuna’s performance is also part of the show? Hard to say, but it is certainly clear from the video that the artist was able to accomplish his entire performance undisturbed by eating the banana in its entirety without anyone protesting at first. In any case, it can be said that the action ... succeeded.

Datuna, who lives and works in New York City, is best known for his work Viewpoint of Millions, a series in which images typical of mass culture (flags, portraits of celebrities, logos of famous brands) are reworked through a surface composed of positive and negative optical lenses to symbolize the way everyone looks at a different subject. His works have been shown in exhibitions around the world.

For those who would like to see Datuna’s performance in full, here is a video below.

The really, really, really expensive banana at #ArtBasel was eaten this afternoon by a New York artist (Vid: David_Datuna) pic.twitter.com/90mUhktyqd

- Joel Franco (@OfficialJoelF) December 8, 2019

Surprise: an artist ... hungry ate Cattelan's banana in Miami. The video

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