Man Who Ate $120K Art Banana Said He Would've Done it Sooner, But Wasn't Hungry Yet

Ronn Torossian / NBC News via Reuters

A performance artist on Monday defended his banana-eating work over the weekend at Art Basel in Miami Beach, boasting he would have done it even earlier but "I was not too hungry," NBC News reported.

David Datuna stunned the art world on Saturday when he chowed down on a banana that was taped to a wall, a work titled "Comedian" by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan. Cattelan had sold at least two editions of "Comedian" to private collectors for $120,000 each, according to a spokeswoman for Paris-based Galerie Perrotin, which displayed the work in its booth at Art Basel.

Datuna insisted that it wasn't a PR stunt when he peeled and consumed the banana on Saturday afternoon.

"I decided in the morning" on Saturday to eat the banana art, Datuna said, "but I was not too hungry so I spent two hours in the Basel."

Contact Us