Skip to content

teodolist studio

ID Tell us what you need

What we do AI consultation Classroom explainers Storybook shorts Lyric videos Brand and launch films AI apps and automation Work Hello, World All work and about Stories library How it works Meet the crew The five steps The full workflow Questions Bahasa Indonesia Tell us what you need

Home
Stories
the banana

the banana

The $6.2 million banana taped to a wall

The $6.2 million banana was bought from a New York fruit stand for about 35 cents.

63 s
History

Watch it in Bahasa Indonesia →

The real story

Maurizio Cattelan's 'Comedian' was never really the banana. Buyers get a certificate of authenticity and instructions: tape a fresh banana to the wall at a certain height and angle, and replace it when it rots. At Art Basel Miami Beach in 2019 the first editions sold for $120,000, and performance artist David Datuna ate one off the wall and called it a performance.

In November 2024 one edition sold at Sotheby's New York for $6.2 million with fees, to the crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun. The banana on display had been bought that week from a street fruit stand outside the auction house. Days later Sun ate it at a press event in Hong Kong. Cattelan is the same artist who made a working solid-gold toilet titled 'America'.

What the narrator says

Tap a line to jump to it.

The facts we checked

In 2019, artist Maurizio Cattelan taped a banana to a wall at Art Basel Miami and called it 'Comedian'; editions sold for $120,000
That year a performance artist peeled one off the wall and ate it
In 2024 an edition sold at auction for $6.2 million; the buyer ate the banana

Sources

We checked every number and date on screen before the video was made.

Made by teodolist studio

Want a series like this?

Need videos like this for your brand or school?

We made all 240 of these, in English and Indonesian, from one script each. We make story series for brands, schools and channels.

Tell us what you need How storybook videos work Videos for schools

More stories like this

0:58 the bulb The light bulb that has been on since 1901

1:05 the volcano Krakatau 1883: the loudest sound in recorded history

1:04 the pigeon Cher Ami: the pigeon who saved the Lost Battalion (1918)

1:01 the duck How 28,800 lost rubber ducks mapped the ocean (1992)

1:00 the tower Why the Leaning Tower of Pisa never fell

0:48 the lighthouse What happened to the lighthouse keepers?

← All stories Next story: Mudik: the cardboard box that goes home for Lebaran →