Maurizio Cattelan’s ‘Comedian’ and Hype at the Fall Auctions

There are only a few prominent collectors who would want to pay for a banana stuck to a wall with anything other than fiat money. So when Sotheby’s announced a week before Wednesday’s evening sale that it would accept cryptocurrency for Maurizio Cattelan’s Comedian, it was no surprise that crypto-enthusiast collectors Ryan Zurrer, Cozomo de’ Medici (a pseudonym), and Justin Sun were vying for the work. Zurrer and de’ Medici were bidding together; the friends wanted to exhibit the fruit through a new “creative cryptonative mechanism” but weren’t willing to shell out the $6.24 million that limelight-chasing Sun eventually paid.

The pair announced after the sale that they will instead try to hawk their “mechanism” with “a different historical work.” Perhaps they’re now regretting not going for Marcel Duchamp’s shovel, In Advance of a Broken Arm (1964), which sold for a shade over $3 million the night before at Christie’s 20th century sale. In any case, with the duo eager to launch a new product with an attention-grabbing buy, keep an eye out for Christie’s angling to land the opportunity for its own slice of crypto publicity pie.

Immediately after winning the lot, Sun announced on X that he was going to pay for Comedian with Tron, the cryptocurrency he created in 2017, before eating the banana. The work’s sale, then, appeared to be a stunt: Sun, worth a reported $1.5 billion, got to promote his cryptocurrency for peanuts, relatively speaking, and Sotheby’s got the press, which drowned out what was otherwise a disappointing auction totaling $112.3 million. Win, win.

Comedian’s fanfare reminded me of Banksy’s 2018 caper, when his painting, “Girl with Balloon,” shredded right after being sold for over $1 million at Sotheby’s in London. The house sold the remnants of the artwork, titled Love is in the Bin, for $23.5 million almost three years later, setting the artist’s auction record. Banksy and the house claim they weren’t in on the self-destructing artwork together – believe that if you will.

Christie’s also hid behind a showstopping artwork or two during its evening sale on Tuesday in New York. René Magritte’s L’empire des lumières (1954) sold for a whopping $121 million, a quarter of the evening’s total, while Ed Ruscha’s 1964 Standard Station, Ten-Cent Western Being Torn in Half went for almost $70 million. Lest we forget, over 40 percent of the lots hammered at or below their low estimate and 12 lots didn’t sell.

To the casual observer, these few big-ticket sales and shock-value stunts suggest auctions are relentless high jinks and action, but sadly this is not the case. In reality, the recent cooling of the art market has tamed bidding, while increasingly prevalent auction guarantees—when an artwork is secured by a third-party before a sale—are also killing the drama.

Speaking of guaranteed lots, three that sold at Christie’s last week caught the eye, shedding light on the house’s guarded client relations. As revealed in a public record – aka UCC – filing from September, New York-based hedge fund manager Anthony Chiasson negotiated financing for a trio of blue-chip works at Christie’s: Hernan Bas’ Tartini’s Dream (The Devil’s Trill) (2012), George Condo’s Linear Portrait (2013), and Peter Doig’s The Painter’s Lake (1999). All three paintings were secured by irrevocable bids. In other words, Christie’s ensured that the works sold for a minimum price by acting as a mediator between Chiasson and a third-party guarantor (the houses rarely reveal the identities of consigners and third parties).

Bas’s work hammered for $550,000 in Thursday’s 21st century evening sale, selling to a phone bidder and realizing a final price of $693,000 with the 26 percent buyer’s premium tagged on. The guarantor lost out, but such deals often see the third-party getting a few percent of the final price if the bidding rises above the pre-agreed price. This is reward for eliminating the risk of an unsold work. The next day at Christie’s post-war and contemporary sale, Condo’s painting sold for $478,800 (estimate: $300,000 to $500,000), while Doig’s painting went for $352,800 (estimate: $220,000 to $280,000). Both final prices include fees. Neither work was landed by their guarantors, but the UCC filing offers insight into how auction houses and their big clients mitigate risk through financial tools (the anthesis of excitement).

(Chiasson declined to comment to ARTnews about the mechanics of such contracts and Christie’s doesn’t comment on its clients.)

The Chiasson situation underscores the reality that auctions often aren’t a true reflection of current demand, because the guarantees are secured in the months leading up to each sale. And then, of course, there are the lots, like Comedian, that are less a reflection of an individual artist’s market, than the pet project of a collector or two. How else to understand a bidding war between crypto entrepreneurs, two of whom want to buy the banana to promote a “creative crypto-native mechanism” and another who plans to use it peddle a cryptocurrency?

The drama and authenticity of live auctions may feel increasingly choreographed due to stunts like the banana, but who can blame the houses for stage-management and putting up smokescreens amid the ongoing art market uncertainty?

Additional reporting by Angelica Villa.