This is not the first time that Comedian, the emblematic taped banana – work of the Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan – has experienced a mishap. The Center Pompidou-Metz announced on Sunday May 31, 2026 that it had filed a complaint against X after the theft of the banana, presented as part of its “Endless Sunday” exhibition. The burglary, less spectacular than that of the Louvre, took place discreetly on Saturday May 30 in the early afternoon, without the knowledge of the museum supervisors.
The fruit was immediately replaced. A habit, since the banana taped with gray adhesive tape is in any case renewed every three days, as stipulated in its strict installation protocol. “The value of the work lies in its certificate of authenticity and in the protocol which governs its presentation rather than in its perishable element,” said the Center Pompidou-Metz in a press release.
Exhibited in Metz since May 2025, the work had already been the victim of an incident last July, when a visitor ate it. The Center Pompidou-Metz did not then file a complaint. This time, the museum decided to report the violation, in the name of “respect due to the works on display”. But how did this taped banana, which is regularly devoured, become a work of art?
Birth of an artistic scandal
It was in 2019 that she made her very first appearance, at the contemporary art fair Art Basel Miami. In this type of event, galleries present works for sale, validated by the art market, collectors and institutions. During this edition, a work presented by the Perrotin gallery, accustomed to provocative presentations, hit the headlines.
On a white wall, a real banana, very ripe, is taped with thick and common gray adhesive tape. Below appears a title, Comedian, and the name of the artist, the Italian Maurizio Cattelan, also accustomed to “scandals” in the art world. And above all, an insane price: 120,000 dollars (more than 100,000 €). It is this whole that forms the work of art: the installation, its simplicity, its absurdity, its price.
The Italian artist thus wishes to question the very concept of a work of art and what gives it value. A press release explains that he first thought of presenting a real banana sculpture. “On each of his trips, he took a banana which he hung in his hotel room, looking for inspiration. He made several prototypes: first in resin, then in bronze, then in painted bronze… Before returning to the initial idea: a real banana,” indicates the gallery.
What is sold at this fair is not the banana itself but the concept of the work and its artistic framework. Three “editions” of the installation are offered for sale: buyers can purchase certificates of authenticity, accompanied by an operating protocol, which contains precise instructions for the installation (height, angle, replacement of the fruit, etc.). The first two editions quickly found a buyer for 120,000 dollars and the third for 150,000 dollars (around €135,000).
From the start, the fruit enjoyed immense success. “Crowds began to form in front of Comedian. Security had to be called in and official queues set up. The visitors were going… crazy,” recalls Vogue journalist Élise Taylor, who attended this first presentation at the Miami fair.
The first to eat the banana
A first incident occurred during this original presentation, establishing the emerging legend of this contemporary work. “At the height of attendance, a man approached the work… and ate the banana. Calmly. He took it down, took a bite as if nothing had happened,” recalls Élise Taylor. This man is none other than the contemporary artist David Datuna, who claims artistic performance.
The gallery replaced the fruit but the fair decided to remove the work the next day, judging that “the crowds around the installation represented a real security risk, and prevented access to the rest of the fair”.
Since then, the famous taped banana has suffered several setbacks, which only increase its fame. In 2023, it was once again eaten by a student in Seoul. A year later, it was the buyer of the work, the Chinese businessman Justin Sun, who ate the banana himself, after having acquired Comedian for 6.2 million dollars (around 5.3 million euros).
At the Pompidou Center in Metz, the taped banana still has a bright future ahead of it, since it will remain hung until February 2027, the end date of the exhibition event organized for the fifteenth anniversary of the regional branch. Nearly 400 works from the Parisian collections of the Center Pompidou interact with around forty creations by Maurizio Cattelan. Comedian sits alongside other subversive works by the Italian artist, such as La Nona Ora (1999), a representation of Pope John Paul II struck down by a meteorite, or Him (2001), depicting a repentant Adolf Hitler kneeling in prayer.
