The Hong Kong Peninsula Hotel, in front of the media cameras, Sun Yuchen ate that banana, worth 6.24 million dollars.
He purchased it through Sotheby’s 7 days ago. Previously, no one expected it to fetch such a high price, no one expected the buyer to be Sun Yuchen, and no one expected it to be eaten so quickly.
Curiosity, mockery, and controversy surged like the sea. At the center of the storm, Sun Yuchen said this was an act of "decentralized" art, and that banana has returned to the story.
This is the focus he desired and the expression he wanted.
He has an obsession with expression. 17 years ago, his means of expression was literature. That spring, he won first prize in the 9th New Concept Writing Contest, with previous winners being Guo Jingming and Han Han.
That year, 55 people won first prize, and the award presenter was the writer A Lai. During the award ceremony, A Lai patted each winner on the shoulder and said, "Young people, there is great hope," but Sun Yuchen believed he was saying it just to him.
On the day of the auction, Sotheby’s staff bought the banana at a fruit stand in Manhattan's East Side for 35 cents. At the auction, 7 people bid, with 32 rounds of bidding, and the final sale price including fees was 6.24 million dollars, a value that multiplied by millions.
Sun Yuchen said that within half a minute after the bidding, media outlets like The New York Times and CNN wanted to interview him, and he immediately realized that the banana would become a hot topic. He decided on the spot to "hold a press conference to eat it."
Seven days later, at the press conference, he ate the banana and during his speech, he said this work has had countless pieces of tape and bananas exchanged in different exhibitions, without the constraints of time or place, and this is the charm of "decentralization."
He does not shy away from the promotional effect of the incident, candidly stating that "the banana has more traffic than I do," and "even my relatives in my village are asking about this matter."