Tourists eat artist Maurizio Cattelant's banana worth over 160 billion VND

According to a statement from the museum on July 21, the banana- embellished work titled Comedian was eaten by a visitor to the gallery at the Centre-Pompidou Metz in eastern France on July 12.

"The security team acted quickly and calmly, in accordance with internal procedures," the gallery confirmed in a statement.

PHOTO: AFP

“The artwork was reassembled a few minutes later,” the report said, adding that the banana was “just a perishable element” that was regularly replaced according to Cattelan’s instructions.

A representative of the Centre-Pompidou Metz confirmed that the artist Cattelan was extremely disappointed that visitors considered the banana a dish. The gallery did not report the incident to the police.

Not the first time a banana has been eaten by a tourist

The Comedian demonstrates "the irrationality of financial speculation and the fragility of the knowledge systems that underpin the art market," according to the Centre-Pompidou Metz.

This is not the first time this artwork has been eaten by a visitor. In 2019, when Cattelan debuted Comedian at the Art Basel Miami art fair in Florida (USA), performance artist David Datuna took a banana from the wall, peeled it and ate it in front of hundreds of amazed fairgoers.

The event became one of the biggest viral moments in the art world , and the piece sold – along with its replacement banana – for $120,000 at the fair.

PHOTO: SCREENSHOT

Then, in 2023, an art student took a banana from the Leeum Museum of Art in Seoul, South Korea and ate it.

In November 2024, Justin Sun, a Chinese collector and founder of a cryptocurrency platform, bought the Comedian for $6.24 million at auction before eating the banana. "It is now probably the most 'eaten' work of art in the last 30 years," the Centre-Pompidou Metz confirmed.