Disruptive or Delirious. How About that Big Art Sale at Sotheby's?!

By Fred Bruning

Dec. 1, 2024

Yes! We have no bananas.

My father would sing the 1923 novelty tune when in one of his frequent vaudevillian moods.

“Yes! We have no bananas. We have no bananas today.”

Dad may have done a little two-step at this point and tip the fedora he wore on such occasions – friends would be over; a couple whiskey sours accomplished – and maybe wiggle his squared-off, truck-driver hips, but only within reason.

The story goes that Frank Silver, a band leader, stopped once for a banana while heading to a hotel ballroom on Long Island and encountered a fruit stand owner who began every sentence with, Yes!

Silver asked for a banana. The store owner said, yes, he had none. The band leader was amused and with collaborator, Irving Cohn, soon knocked out a screwball American classic.

No shortage of bananas these lush days, of course, but in one case there has been a serious price adjustment.

Sotheby’s, the high-class auction house in Manhattan, just sold one for…

…I am pausing here in deference to those who suspect, for many reasons, we lately have been transported to a distant planet or drawn into a cosmic black hole where trusted notions like, oh, helping old ladies cross the street, or buying Girl Scout cookies, no longer apply.

Snap out of it. We continue Earth occupancy and there is no escape. (Well, there is one escape, strongly discouraged. Chardonnay, instead.)

So, then, ready for the price of a banana at Sotheby’s?

But just hold on for one more second, you may be saying. Why is an Upper East Side emporium selling tropical fruit in the first place?

Because a controversial work owned by a collector and created by artist Maurizio Cattelan – gotta’ love this guy – needed representation and if you are going to dare offer a banana stuck to a wall with duct tape for what turned out to be $6.2 million (fees included), really, where else but the famous Sotheby’s would you go?

To review: Banana, duct tape, $6.2 million. (Wall not included.) Bidding started at $800,000 and after five frenzied minutes Sotheby’s had a winner.

What a day! What a world!

A lucky art lover soon would take home – unless he ate it on the way – a piece described by auctioneer Oliver Barker as “iconic” and “disruptive.”

Surely, this was a baffling turn of events to the streetside fruit peddler, a fellow from Bangladesh who, the New York Times discovered, proffered the actual Cattelan banana – Dole brand – for only 35 cents.

Iconic? Disruptive? Delirious? Daft?

As we know, there is likely to be a stark division of opinion on just about everything.

A $6 million banana? Yeah, sure, whatever the market bears. Why not?

For perspective, Cattelan, described by the Times as a “noted prankster” titled his piece, “Comedian.” It’s a joke, you see, a comment on the absolute wingnut wackadoodle-ness of art market pricing, and, maybe, I can’t be sure, an inside joke on all of us. You know, nothing means anything kind of idea.

Oh, and, yes, bet you can guess the art buyer’s occupation.

Bingo: Cryptocurrency.

Crypto capitalist Jason Sun had more than enough discretionary income to spring for Sotheby’s banana-duct tape special. And, ok, Sun couldn’t actually eat his installation on the way home because he watched the bidding from Hong Kong, according to the Times.

At some point (soon one would expect), however, Sun will take delivery and “personally eat the banana as part of this unique artistic experience, honoring its place in both art history and popular culture.”

Later, the distant connoisseur said he’d buy 100,000 bananas from the stand in New York to, you know, give the poor man some extra business but, wholesale cost of produce taken into consideration, that doesn’t amount to much.

Cattelan, the rascal, said he felt “fantastic” about the transaction even though the money for his piece will go to the aforementioned collector who evidently knew the market was, well, ripe.

The food vendor?

Intrepid reporter Sarah Maslin Nir of the Times followed up.

Shah Alam, a 74-year-old widower from Bangladesh who speaks mostly in Bengali, spends 12 hours on his feet four days a week and earns $12 an hour.

When told the selling price of, “Comedian,” Alam said, “I am a poor man. I have never had this kind of money. I have never seen this kind of money.”

Then, according to the Times, Alam’s voice cracked.

There it is.

A true-life tale.

The entrepreneur celebrates.

The artist exults.

The food vendor weeps.

Yes! We have no bananas.

Previous Invisible Ink posts at: https://fredbruning.substack.com/archive