Cattelan’s 'Comedian' Eaten Again
By Sarah Knight
Last week, Maurizio Cattelan’s Comedian, 2019, was eaten straight from the gallery wall – though not for the first time. The work, composed of a banana and duct-tape, was on display at Leeum Museum of Art in Seoul as part of Cattelan’s solo exhibition WE. In this rather startling interaction, hungry art student Noh Huyn-soo ate the banana before proceeding haphazardly to reconstruct the work, taping the remaining peel to the wall. Enlisting the assistance of a friend to film the act – retrospectively labelled as everything from an improvement, to staunch vandalism – he smiles for the camera upon finishing his ‘snack’ after skipping breakfast. Beyond the initial shock, his actions have raised questions of where the meaning of the artwork lies, the motivations and implications of consuming and altering the work, and the potential for repercussions within the art world.
Maurizio Cattelan, ‘Comedian’, 2019. Source: Getty Images.
This is not the first time Cattelan’s work has found itself at the centre of public controversy. Comedian has been the topic of much debate, with varying reactions from admiration to confusion and distain, particularly fueled by the sale of three editions of the work at auction for $120,000 in 2019. This shocking sale provoked David Datuna to eat the banana in a transgressive artistic performance he entitled Hungry Artist. While Datuna took to social media praising Cattelan’s practice and jokily professing the work to be ‘very delicious’, he disclosed the real motivation behind this act to be a comment on the exuberant monetary value of the work while people suffer and die from starvation.
In both cases of the work being consumed, the artist’s own reaction has been minimal, with no charges pressed and the banana quickly replaced by gallery staff. Echoing the 2019 statement, that eating the banana does not destroy the artwork as ‘the banana is the idea’, Cattelan responded to the most recent event with simply ‘no problem at all’. The artwork is a conceptual piece; the banana is replaced every two to three days, and the meaning of the work resides in the concept, or more materially, in the accompanying certificate of authenticity and installation instructions. Cattelan’s response, and the laissez faire attitude to such interaction with the work, poses questions surrounding wider treatment of conceptual art, and the value continually placed upon physical objects. It can be said with some certainty that urination into Duchamp’s Fountain, 1917, would be met with public outrage, but this too is considered a prominent example of conceptual art, therefore where is the line to be drawn?
Huyn-soo in fact presented the argument that views within the art world need to change, to consider the possibility that such acts of ‘damage’ can be reframed and viewed as acts of art-making. While Huyn-soo’s motivations were not entirely clear – compared to the activists defacing and gluing themselves to artworks in protest of climate injustice – provocation is evidently central. He presents rhetorical questions of ‘isn’t it taped there to be eaten?’ and ‘was it intentional or terrorism?’, bating his audience and bringing into question: where lies meaning and value in an artwork? And does damage singularly equate to violence and sabotage, or in the spirit of conceptualism, can it too be art?
Bibliography
Cascone, Sarah. ‘‘He Was Hungry’: A Korean Art Student Untaped Maurizio Cattelan’s Infamous $150,000 Banana From a Museum Wall and Ate It,’ 1 May 2023. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/maurizio-cattelan-banana-artwork-eaten-again-2293205
Greenberger, Alex. ‘Maurizio Cattelan’s Banana Is Eaten Again, This Time by South Korean Art Student Who Skipped Breakfast,’ 1 May 2023. https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/maurizio-cattelan-banan-eaten-south-korean-student-1234666114/
Huyn-soo, Noh (@shwan.han). Instagram, 27 April 2023. https://www.instagram.com/p/CriC1hePUKM/
Opinion, Frieze. ‘The Art of Destruction: Getting Tough on Vandalism,’ 7 June 1997. https://www.frieze.com/article/art-destruction
Sutton, Benjamin. ‘Hungry art student eats Maurizio Cattelan’s banana work,’ 1 May 2023. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2023/05/01/art-student-eats-maurizio-cattelan-banana-leeum-museum-seoul