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When last we checked in on the fine art world, a banana duct-taped to a wall sold at auction for $6.2 million. If that doesn’t make sense, let me clarify: the sale broke down to $5.2 million for the bid, plus $1M for Sotheby’s fees, and technically all that only went towards a certificate of authenticity giving the winner the right to purchase his own banana and duct tape to affix to a wall precisely according to artist Maurizio Cattelan’s specifications in order to call it a genuine Comedian, the name of the piece (and still my favorite detail). So that is what winning bidder Justin Sun did last Friday in Hong Kong. Sun, a 34-year-old millionaire (sigh) who heads a cryptocurrency platform called Tron, had his work of art installed… only so a press conference could document his removing, peeling, and eating the food/art on camera. I don’t think Sun has realized yet that the joke’s on him, but then again, I’m not the millionaire (double sigh). NPR reported on the artful ingestion:
“Many friends have asked me about the taste of the banana,” Sun wrote in a post on X alongside a video of him eating the multimillion-dollar Maurizio Cattelan piece called Comedian.
“To be honest, for a banana with such a back story, the taste is naturally different from an ordinary one. I could discern a hint of what Big Mike bananas from 100 years ago might have tasted like,” said Sun, the founder of the cryptocurrency platform Tron.
Big Mike bananas — a common translation of the flavorful Gros Michel banana variety — were once ubiquitous and have now become virtually impossible to find.
Sun wrote that as thanks to Shah Alam — the 74-year-old Bangladeshi fruit stand employee who originally sold the banana for just 25 cents — he would purchase 100,000 bananas to be distributed for free to Alam’s customers.
Speaking to the New York Times, however, Alam noted a number of logistical issues with Sun’s proposal.
The profit on bananas is relatively low, Alam told the paper — only about $6,000 on a purchase of 100,000 bananas. And Alam is an employee of the fruit stand, not its owner.
His salary of $12/hour during his 12-hour workday, which affords him a shared basement apartment in the Bronx, would not be affected by a bulk novelty sale.
This is not Sun’s first venture into multimillion-dollar bids. In 2019, he won a $4.8 million bid to have lunch with Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett. In 2021, he put up $28 million to be among the first passengers on Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft, though that trip was ultimately canceled.
It’s fitting that a crypto bro pulling a stunt with a phallic-coded object boasted that the ($0.25) banana tasted not like an ordinary banana but bigly better, like the legendary Big Mike’s variety… that was mostly wiped out by disease in the 1960s, so well-before Sun’s birth. But the story really goes from comedy to tragedy with all the commentary from the fruit vendor, Shah Alam. When the NY Times let him know that one of his $0.25 bananas went on to sell for $6.2 million, Alam asked of the bidders, “Do they not know what a banana is?” Salient point. But I absolutely love the way Alam eviscerates Sun’s half-peeled gesture of buying $25,000 worth of bananas, by systematically highlighting the fiscal errors in Sun’s “plan.” Yet Alam is not the millionaire here (triple sigh). No, instead it’s Sun who’s the millionaire, despite having (arguably) overpaid for a banana, duct tape, and certificate of authenticity by approximately $6,199,999.75. All this despite the fact that last year the SEC charged Tron for fraud and other violations. I doubt Sun will face much trouble, though, as he’s reportedly the largest investor in a crypto scheme backed by Trump. But I do wonder if, with all this publicity, Disney will now go after Sun claiming a trademark on the name “Tron.” In which case, I hope Sun has some bananas stored for a rainy day.
Money laundering and trump supporters. No thank you.
Yep. Somebody needed to move six million dollars so they made an “art.” It’s naked fraud and we all smile and laugh.
Sometimes a banana is just a banana. I feel like we are living in a fratocracy.
The true winner is the artist, laughing alllll the way to the bank!
Sad when you think of all the good that could be accomplished by this tool mindfully distributing money.
So true. My social media feed has been showing me a lot of charity-related things. Things like toys for tots, or the organizations where you can buy a specific gift for a kid, and the kids are all asking for like, socks or a coat.
There is no end to the list of people in need and then you see 6 million going to something like this, so some rich asshat can eat the banana on camera. It’s just so gross and so sad.
Truly depraved moment and so out of touch …. The contempt for life is chilling
Yup. Every year, near the winter holidays, Macy’s has a coat sale, with many coats for children marked down to $20 or less. Lots of kids in challenging circumstances get warm winter coats — and often hand knit hats, scarves and mittens from people who, knowing about the sale, manage to stretch their limited funds a lot further.
I really don’t get this whole banana thing. Was it mostly about having an Instagram moment?
GenZ Elon Musk in the making?
This guy not understanding how an order of that size from a fruit stand would create more problems than the money is worth feels indicative of why we shouldn’t idolize all of these high-net worth folks. Luck is 99.9% of the reason they are where they are and anyone can throw money around when you have that much of it. It’s not special or praiseworthy.
“I doubt Sun will face much trouble, though, as he’s reportedly the largest investor in a crypto scheme backed by …”
The bigly Sun donated reportedly 18 million US dollars to the bigly 🍊💩 campaign. Yes, these morally bankruptcy millionaires & billionaires stick together.
There’s much more to this than meets the eye. The public distant is essentially a distraction from the fact that Sun has gotten into bed with Donald Trump, putting millions of dollars in Trump’s pocket.
https://open.substack.com/pub/popularinformation/p/a-chinese-national-charged-with-fraud?r=23szj1&utm_medium=ios
I swear if someone displayed a dog turd in an art gallery and put a price tag next to it, Some moron would buy it.