A Banana Worth Millions Was Stolen. But Was It Really?

How an artwork can be taken away and still remain intact.

Visitors stand before a banana taped to a wall, still intact despite having been stolen. (Image by R. Gasparini Jr., AI-assisted)

A banana was stolen. Not a regular one, but a banana worth millions of dollars. And yet, the banana is still there.

Comedian is an installation by Maurizio Cattelan that became famous for provoking discussions about art, value, and the way society decides what deserves attention. The work consists of a real banana attached to a wall with a strip of silver duct tape. For some, it is a brilliant piece of conceptual art. For others, it is an outrageous example of everything that is wrong with the contemporary art world.

The installation first became a global sensation in 2019 when it was exhibited at Art Basel Miami Beach. Years later, it returned to the headlines when one edition of the work sold at auction for $6.2 million. The buyer did not purchase a magical banana. In fact, the fruit itself is expected to be replaced whenever it begins to rot. What was purchased was the certificate of authenticity and the right to display the work according to the artist’s instructions.

Recently, Comedian made the news again after the banana used in an exhibition was stolen at the Centre Pompidou-Metz in France.

When I first heard the story, I imagined the usual sequence of events. The museum would launch an investigation. Security footage would be reviewed. Authorities would search for the thief and attempt to recover the valuable artwork.

But then I learned something unexpected. The museum did not seem particularly concerned about recovering the banana. They could simply replace it with another one.

That simple response opened a much more interesting discussion than the usual debates about whether a banana taped to a wall is “real art.” It revealed a fascinating possibility: an artwork can be stolen, damaged, or destroyed, and yet remain completely intact.

When Damage Does Not Damage

Most artworks have a direct relationship with the objects from which they are made. If someone damages a painting, the artwork itself suffers damage. If a sculpture is broken, the artwork has been altered. The physical object and the artwork are closely connected. One cannot easily be separated from the other.

Imagine someone attacking the Mona Lisa. Nobody would say, “Just paint another one.” The artwork exists in that particular object. Its material history matters. Its originality matters. Every crack, restoration, and brushstroke belongs to the work itself.

Comedian operates differently. The banana is not expected to last. It is a fruit. It will eventually turn brown and decompose. The work is designed with replacement in mind. The instructions associated with the installation assume that the banana will be changed periodically.

This creates a strange situation. The disappearance of the banana does not necessarily mean the disappearance of the artwork. In traditional art, damage to the object is damage to the work. In Comedian, damage to the object may simply be part of the normal life cycle of the work.

This distinction forces us to reconsider a basic assumption. Perhaps the artwork and the object are not always the same thing.

The Artwork and the Object

The story of Comedian becomes more interesting when we ask a simple question: where exactly does the artwork exist?

At first glance, the answer seems obvious. It is the banana on the wall. But if the banana can be replaced indefinitely, then the artwork cannot reside entirely within the fruit. The banana functions more like a temporary vessel.

One way to understand this is to think about music. When an orchestra performs Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, the musicians create sounds that eventually disappear. Yet nobody believes the symphony ceases to exist when the performance ends. The work survives because it is not identical to any particular performance.

Something similar may be happening with Comedian. The artwork appears to exist in a combination of ideas, instructions, authorship, and social recognition. The banana is necessary for displaying the work, but it is not the complete work itself.

This is why a supermarket banana taped to a wall by a random person is not automatically worth millions of dollars. The object may look identical, but the artistic context is different. The meaning attached to the work is different. The history behind it is different.

Whether one finds that convincing or absurd is another matter. The important point is that Comedian exposes the difference between an artwork and the material object through which it appears.

The Ship of Theseus in a Gallery

The questions raised by Comedian are not limited to the art world. For centuries, philosophers have discussed a thought experiment known as the Ship of Theseus. Imagine a wooden ship whose planks are replaced one by one over time. Eventually, every original plank has been removed and replaced. Is it still the same ship?

There is no universally accepted answer. The puzzle asks what allows something to remain itself while undergoing change.

Comedian brings this ancient question into a gallery. If every banana used in the installation is eventually replaced, is it still the same artwork? If the duct tape changes as well, does that matter? If the wall changes, does that matter?

Most people instinctively answer yes. They still regard it as the same artwork. Yet that answer reveals something important. We are not identifying the work through its physical components. We are identifying it through something more abstract.

The identity of Comedian survives the replacement of its materials because we believe the work exists beyond those materials. The stolen banana therefore becomes more than a stolen object. It becomes a practical demonstration of a philosophical problem that has occupied thinkers for thousands of years.

When Theft Makes the Artwork Stronger

Normally, theft threatens an artwork. A stolen painting disappears from public view. A destroyed sculpture may be lost forever. Museums invest enormous resources in protecting their collections precisely because physical damage can permanently harm the works they preserve.

Comedian presents a exception. Each time the banana is eaten, removed, stolen, or replaced, the artwork gains another chapter in its story. The incidents become part of the work’s cultural life. People discuss it again. Newspapers write about it again. Social media debates it again.

In an ironic way, attempts to interfere with the work often reinforce its central ideas. The theft directs attention toward the question of what was actually taken. The replacement of the banana forces viewers to confront the distinction between the artwork and its physical form. The controversy itself becomes evidence that the work is still functioning exactly as intended.

One could even argue that the stolen banana is less interesting than the conversation that follows. The fruit disappears. The artwork remains. Few artworks can survive destruction by transforming it into part of their meaning. Fewer still can become stronger because of it.

There is another curious aspect to the theft. At the time of writing, we still do not know why the banana was stolen. Unlike many famous art thefts, it is difficult to imagine a lucrative black market for the object itself. Stolen paintings and sculptures sometimes disappear into private collections or criminal networks where their value remains tied to their identity as artworks. The banana from Comedian is different. Removed from the context of the installation, it is simply a banana. The most anyone could realistically sell it for is roughly the same amount one would pay at a grocery store. The thief may have taken a fruit associated with a multimillion-dollar artwork, but they did not take the multimillion-dollar value with it.

What Was Actually Stolen?

The story begins with a simple statement: a banana was stolen. Yet by the time we reach the end of the story, that statement no longer seems so simple. The banana was certainly taken. A physical object disappeared. But the artwork remained where it had always been.

This is what makes Comedian so intriguing. Its significance lies not in the banana itself, but in the discussion that the banana allows us to have.

The banana was stolen, but the artwork stayed exactly where it was.

Whether one considers Comedian a masterpiece or a joke is ultimately beside the point. It has forced millions of people to stop and think about what an artwork actually is. In many ways, it continues a conversation that Marcel Duchamp started in 1917 when he presented an ordinary urinal as art and challenged audiences to reconsider what an artwork could be.

The final irony:

By now, there is also a good chance that the banana itself has already been eaten by whoever took it. If so, we can say that someone was truly fulfilled by art. In fact, by now the artwork’s most famous component has probably completed its final transformation into something far less suitable for display in a museum.

— Roberto Gasparini

Further Reading

**MMaurizio Cattelan: All* Spector, N. (Ed.). (2011). New York, NY: Guggenheim Museum Publications. [[find this book here](https://www.amazon.com/Maurizio-Cattelan-All-Nancy-Spector/dp/0892075317?_encoding=UTF8&dib_tag=se&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.gAOB1OvNYAQpsEcsd2Z5YqX7pWY8lyUDrbgXPqM-NIIJ82eO4ImBFomZgYh6l3PynMBdLiGjkim38KM5huuT87-mlyFgmr0EZehdpEScF5PhXXd6O60DQ_PlOGgCUV7dymQzs0IFlwU8hZF4cTGYSfPRj-kNB5KTSEV_XVr31emWc42ZNxx0oeh_I4b8I4UoeSP0-0ObrGouYY8hE7nwmzN0cdORKtSM0Mgj9x3SAAw.LxyEKXkXsJFobVhdvEDluF2jiqEw3AIQNYhizm3A4Ko&qid=1780708782&sr=1-1&linkCode=ll2&tag=rgasparinijr-20&linkId=ed7f9ab88d7d34b47a9f6c554a21a6d6&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl)*]

**MMaurizio Cattelan: Beware of Yourself* Tenconi, R., Todolí, V., & Palenzona, T. (Eds.). (2011). Milan, Italy: Fondazione Nicola Trussardi. [[find this book here](https://www.amazon.com/Maurizio-Cattelan-Beware-Yourself/dp/B0DWHB63C5?pd_rd_w=jq4LE&content-id=amzn1.sym.aa738fbd-ad05-4d11-aae2-04b598db6305&pf_rd_p=aa738fbd-ad05-4d11-aae2-04b598db6305&pf_rd_r=VD1C3TMGY8MG69TDD90Z&pd_rd_wg=C7Rfm&pd_rd_r=e381a639-1442-4f73-9e87-6778e9533354&pd_rd_i=B0DWHB63C5&psc=1&linkCode=ll2&tag=rgasparinijr-20&linkId=618b2c05f041e8d7b2b93b9be4bd3dc5&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl)*]

**TThe Writings of Marcel Duchamp* Duchamp, M., Sanouillet, M., & Peterson, E. (Eds.). (1994). New York, NY: Da Capo Press. [[find this book here](https://www.amazon.com/Writings-Marcel-Duchamp-Capo-Paperback/dp/0306803410?crid=10AGRFPSFU7VI&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.mdtJOIa6QUxMKIIQy-cQg_v10-yF7Yi6mFkbfOPnzBbHorer6WAlwHP-Oof-Qi-w7DpcfwJ7Ss8IVypaMcd2MoTppLIAVPXqFS2ZmziCePh8ADpH0Mb7iFobao8WQoTs6Cu56rqiPoCAirggNtJpeBkcjPm-wS9Y8FS7A3fMKNDaWvdvoKuiQl5cuKgHN0BqES2KUQc_Ke6F-o2wTLUONN5bldvgJ4vfA7e7fK--L3c.eiKLKJZtBjitI9qvyguHk_g6m0A5pmeG0lgLhQCqerQ&dib_tag=se&keywords=The+Essential+Writings+of+Marcel+Duchamp&qid=1780708857&s=books&sprefix=the+essential+writings+of+marcel+duchamp%2Cstripbooks%2C288&sr=1-1&linkCode=ll2&tag=rgasparinijr-20&linkId=e48c2f4b9752db974f3950773d8e2f9c&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl)*]

**CConceptual Art* Godfrey, T. (1998). London, England: Phaidon Press. [[find this book here](https://www.amazon.com/Conceptual-Art-I-Ideas/dp/0714833886?crid=27Z7PNJB6BEKZ&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.V0LNm5TGV6lDjJnPId8uZ3p8hdNiA4e5vTvxHQHhjdkEAsz8Wbvla7xruDzCWZZGjXRaDLtmPCDMWgBSSNuXoNKwzetwqXYm8IGb4ntxmjO7ywU0URpFu9DUvI-1r027959MAR_9UscN-GmT1aLKLQ.rjTWVDMC8OmU23Lqrz0p_rd0i19NoS9Dxw7TZmDNILE&dib_tag=se&keywords=Conceptual+Art+is+a+1998+art+history+book+by+Tony+Godfrey&nsdOptOutParam=true&qid=1780708919&s=books&sprefix=%2Cstripbooks%2C240&sr=1-1&linkCode=ll2&tag=rgasparinijr-20&linkId=5b4ee4559a4730622fbb7dcdef842d9c&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl)*]

**AAesthetics of Installation Art* Rebentisch, J. (2012). New York, NY: Sternberg Press. [[find this book here](https://www.amazon.com/Aesthetics-Installation-Art-Juliane-Rebentisch/dp/3943365190?crid=1GE3E04TQG2P1&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.blCbDQVZgy8WlSUyLEDq95ki0tboSy1kE1FsWS35iYbGjHj071QN20LucGBJIEps.NnbY0sxQopO9m9nRgFu_s540PyPf08zdSiq_4QJmeSU&dib_tag=se&keywords=Installation+Art%3A+A+Critical+History&qid=1780709138&s=books&sprefix=installation+art+a+critical+history%2Cstripbooks%2C236&sr=1-1&linkCode=ll2&tag=rgasparinijr-20&linkId=0e60f52156b9d2ce3d9e421640a1ce0e&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl)*]

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