In a turn of events that blends high art with absurd reality, the Pompidou-Metz museum in eastern France has reported the theft of a banana—a central component of the multimillion-dollar conceptual artwork titled Comedian by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan.
The provocative piece, consisting of a banana taped to a wall, was noticed missing by a museum guard on Saturday. The museum, a branch of the renowned Pompidou Center in Paris, subsequently lodged a criminal complaint against unknown perpetrators. While the museum has already replaced the fruit—a routine procedure as the banana is changed every three days to maintain its contemporary state—officials emphasized that the legal action was taken because the perpetrator was unidentified, leaving no possibility for dialogue and raising issues regarding respect for the artwork.
This is not the first time the piece has faced unexpected interventions. In July of last year, a visitor consumed the fruit, though guards acted quickly to replace it. At the time, Cattelan expressed a lighthearted disappointment that the hungry visitor had only eaten the banana and not the tape.
Since its debut at the 2019 Art Basel show in Miami Beach with an initial price tag of $120,000, Comedian has consistently challenged global perceptions of art and value. The work's notoriety grew further when performance artist David Datuna ate the piece during the 2019 show, claiming he was simply hungry.
The artwork's market value has only surged over time. In 2024, Chinese-born crypto founder Justin Sun acquired an iteration of the work for a staggering $5.2 million. In a bold performance for cameras in Hong Kong, Sun later ate the fruit, further cementing the piece's status as a symbol of the intersection between extreme wealth and conceptual art.
Cattelan is no stranger to high-profile controversy or theft. He is also the creator of America, a fully functioning 18-carat gold toilet. That piece became the center of a legal battle in the United Kingdom after a British court found two men guilty in March of stealing it from a stately home in 2020. Unlike the easily replaceable banana, the gold from the toilet was never recovered.
For global observers and art investors, the repeated thefts and consumption of Comedian highlight a fascinating tension in the modern art market: where the value lies not in the physical object, but in the idea and the provocation it generates.
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Just too a-peeling? Controversial banana art stolen from French museum
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