Saturday, November 30, 2024 - Crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun on Friday, Nov. 29, ate the duct-taped banana he bought for $6.2 million.
Sun, 34, ate the fruit in front of reporters in Hong Kong in
what he called an “iconic” stunt, fulfilling a promise he’d made after buying
it from a New York art auction, according to Agence France-Press.
As he ate the banana art, he compared conceptual art and
cryptocurrency.
“It’s much better than other bananas,” he said as he took a
first bite. “It’s really quite good.”
Titled "Comedian", the conceptual work created by
Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan was sold at a Sotheby's auction in New York
last week, with Sun among seven bidders.
Sun said he felt "disbelief" in the first 10
seconds after he won the bid, before realising "this could become
something big".
In the 10 seconds after that, he decided he would eat the
banana.
"Eating it at a press conference can also become a part of the artwork's history," he said Friday, Nov. 29.
The banana art first debuted at the 2019 Art Basel show in
Miami Beach. At the time, it sparked controversy and raised questions about
whether it should be considered art.
And Sun on Friday compared conceptual art like
"Comedian" to NFT art and decentralised blockchain technology.
"Most of its objects and ideas exist as (intellectual
property) and on the internet, as opposed to something physical," he said.
The banana artwork owner is given a certificate of
authenticity that the work was created by Cattelan as well as instructions
about how to replace the banana when it goes bad.
Sun told AFP that his artwork may well benefit from the same
kind of speculative craze usually associated with crypto.
"I think (the price) probably is going to go up even
more in the future, just like Bitcoin," he said.
Meanwhile, the mega-million-dollar banana had been bought from a New York street vendor for just 35 cents, then duct-taped to a wall by artist Maurizio Cattelan as part of his “Comedian” collection.
Sun ate the banana just hours after it emerged it had
been bought for less than a dollar from 74-year-old New York City
street vendor Shah Alam, who works for $12 an hour at his stand outside of
Sotheby’s on the Upper East Side.
“I am a poor man,” the widower told the New York Times with
tears in his eyes. “I have never had this kind of money; I have never seen this
kind of money.”
Sun vowed to “buy 100,000 bananas from his stand in New
York’s Upper East Side,” he tweeted Thursday afternoon, Nov. 28.
“These bananas will be distributed free worldwide through
his stand,” Sun said, adding that he hoped to visit Alam in person.
Watch the video below.
🍌 BREAKING: Justin Sun eats the $6.2M banana art he purchased. pic.twitter.com/3Qj1ANpTYX
— Cointelegraph (@Cointelegraph) November 29, 2024
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