He gets confused and eats (again) Cattelan's banana, valued at six million dollars.

If you thought the story of Comedian , the famous banana by artist Mauricio Cattelan , was over, you were sorely mistaken. To recap: this conceptual work by the so-called enfant terrible of the art world, which was exhibited for the first time in 2019, has always created a stir due to its own idiosyncrasy. It's a banana taped to a wall, functioning as a device and in danger of dying every time it's exhibited. The first time, it was the late Georgian artist David Datuna who ate it in a performance he called Hungry Artist . Later, a student at the University of Seoul did the same. Last year, it fetched six million dollars at auction .

And now it has suffered the same fate as its siblings, a third time. Valued at $150,000, it was stuck (like its twins) to a white wall at the Pompidou Centre in Metz , eastern France (near the borders with Luxembourg, Germany, and Belgium ), as part of the Dimanche Sans Fin exhibition, organized to celebrate the museum's 15th anniversary. Then, it was devoured by someone who mistook it for a simple banana.

Cattelan reacted with resignation: "It's a shame he didn't eat the peel and the ribbon as well ," he commented with his characteristic humor. The museum, for its part, downplayed the incident , and the banana was replaced within minutes. "The fruit is perishable ," they explained, "and is replaced regularly according to the artist's instructions. In essence, an edible and endless work of art."

It was last November that the banana made headlines again when Justin Sun , a Chinese cryptocurrency investor, paid $6.2 million for the work. He then ate it and claimed it was "better than other bananas." In addition to the banana itself and the tape, the work comes with a certificate of authenticity and official installation instructions. Since its unveiling at Art Basel Miami in 2019, three copies of Comedian have sold for between $120,000 and $150,000.

The artist said it was a shame he didn't eat the peel and tape too.

Cattelan has always described Comedian as a "commentary work" that invites reflection on what we value. "It is a challenging work of pure genius," David Galperin, Sotheby's head of contemporary art, recently noted . "This work, which combines profound critical thought with subversive wit, is decisive for the artist and for our generation."

The Pompidou Center also noted that Comedian was conceived with the idea of denouncing "the absurdity of financial speculation and the fragility of the knowledge systems that underpin the art market." It will likely be back in the news when some other unsuspecting person ends up eating it up.

If you thought the story of Comedian , the famous banana by artist Mauricio Cattelan , was over, you were sorely mistaken. To recap: this conceptual work by the so-called enfant terrible of the art world, which was exhibited for the first time in 2019, has always created a stir due to its own idiosyncrasy. It's a banana taped to a wall, functioning as a device and in danger of dying every time it's exhibited. The first time, it was the late Georgian artist David Datuna who ate it in a performance he called Hungry Artist . Later, a student at the University of Seoul did the same. Last year, it fetched six million dollars at auction .