At the Pompidou Center located in the French city of Metz, the famous art installation ‘Comedian’ by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan — a banana taped to the wall — has been stolen. The disappearance of the exhibit was noticed by a museum guard during a routine inspection of the premises over the weekend.
This is reported by Finway
The Controversial Banana: The Story of the ‘Comedian’ Installation
Since its presentation in Miami in 2019, this piece of contemporary art has repeatedly sparked controversy. Specifically, visitors to the exhibitions have eaten the banana multiple times — after which it was always replaced with a new one, following a special protocol. According to the instructions, the fruit must be attached to the wall at a 37-degree angle, emphasizing the artist’s intent and the irony of the work.
In July 2025, the banana had already attracted attention in Metz when one of the attendees simply ate the installation. The work itself is part of the exhibition ‘Dimanche sans fin’ (‘Endless Sunday’), where it can be seen again — the organizers promptly returned the exhibit by replacing the missing fruit with a new banana secured with a fresh piece of tape.
Why Does Cattelan’s Installation Attract So Much Attention?
The idea of the work lies in rethinking the value of art and its semantic content. Since a real banana is used, the art object cannot be eternal — it undergoes natural aging, rots, and requires regular replacement. This further enhances the philosophical subtext of the installation.
The first person to eat Cattelan’s banana in Miami was contemporary artist David Datuna. He removed the fruit from the installation during the Art Basel Miami 2019 exhibition, after which he declared:
“Dear Maurizio!”
Later, David Datuna jokingly referred to himself as “the first artist to eat another artist’s artwork.” In 2023, another incident occurred at the Leeum Museum of Art in Seoul, when a student from South Korea ate the banana, explaining that he was hungry and perceived the installation as food.
In 2024, entrepreneur Justin Sun was recognized as the new owner of the installation — he purchased the piece for nearly 6 million euros, and later also ate the banana, joking that “this banana is better than other bananas.”
Maurizio Cattelan is known not only for his banana works. Among his other provocative pieces is a toilet made of 18-karat gold titled ‘America,’ created for Donald Trump during his time in the White House. This toilet was later stolen from the house where Winston Churchill was born in 2020. Despite the arrest of the thieves, the toilet has never been recovered.