It went bananas.
The New York City fruit vendor who sold an ordinary banana that was duct-taped to a gallery wall inside Sotheby’s and sold for a whopping $6.2 million was devastated to learn that he was made the butt of the joke — but New Yorkers and the art buyer are now lining up to support him.
Shah Alam, a 74-year-old fruit seller who works a sidewalk stand outside Sotheby’s on the Upper East Side for $12 an hour, sold the piece of fruit that would become part of Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan’s absurdist work titled “Comedian,” the New York Times reported Thursday.
The conceptual piece, which first debuted at Art Basel Miami Beach in 2019, offers a commentary on the ridiculousness of the art world, with its meaning tied to the money and fans it attracts. It was sold by Sotheby’s last week on behalf of an anonymous collector.
“In that way, the work becomes self-reflexive: The higher the price, the more it reinforces its original concept,” Cattelan wrote to the Times.
Last week, that meaning swelled to the millions at auction. The opening bid started at $800,000 and within five minutes, the taped banana — which requires the fruit to be refreshed once or twice a week — sold for $5.2 million plus over $1 million in auction-house fees to a Chinese cryptocurrency company founder.
Alam, a nearly blind Bangladeshi immigrant who doesn’t speak much English, had no idea his 35-cent banana was resold for the eyeball-popping price until a Times reporter found him and told him this week.
The new information — confirmed by a spokesperson from Sotheby’s — brought tears to his eyes, the Times said.
“I am a poor man,” Alam told the reporter, his voice breaking. “I have never had this kind of money; I have never seen this kind of money.”
The fruit seller moved from Dhaka, where he was a civil servant, to the US in 2007 to be near his adult daughter who lives on Long Island, the outlet reported.
A widower, Alam said he pays $500 a month to live in a basement apartment with five other men in the Parkchester section of the Bronx. He works at the same fruit stand on York Avenue and East 72nd Street for 12 hours a day, four days a week no matter the weather. He makes $12 an hour — or $576 a week, he told the Times.
He didn’t get the concept behind the “Comedian” but felt like the joke came at his expense.
“Those who bought it, what kind of people are they?” he asked the Times reporter. “Do they not know what a banana is?”
Cattelan, who was not compensated for the Sotheby’s sale, said he felt for the vendor but didn’t offer to help him.
“The reaction of the banana vendor moves me deeply, underscoring how art can resonate in unexpected and profound ways,” he told the Times via email. “However, art, by its nature, does not solve problems — if it did, it would be politics.”
Justin Sun, the new owner of “Comedian” whose net worth is estimated to be at least $1.4 billion, meanwhile offered to pay Alam for more of the yellow fruit.
“To thank Mr. Shah Alam, I’ve decided to buy 100,000 bananas from his stand in New York’s Upper East Side,” Sun tweeted Thursday afternoon. “These bananas will be distributed free worldwide through his stand.”
Sun, who lives in China, did not say how he plans to buy and distribute the bananas but said that a valid ID will be needed to claim a free one.
It’s also unclear if Alam’s tiny neighborhood fruit stand has the supply for such a large purchase.
“Mr. Alam’s contribution to this extraordinary artwork is indispensable, highlighting the boundless possibilities and value hidden in everyday life,” Sun added. “I hope this initiative will bring his story to a broader audience and, one day, I look forward to visiting his fruit stand in person to express my gratitude again.”
Alam’s tragic story didn’t just move the billionaire.
An anonymous New Yorker launched a GoFundMe for the fruit seller and promised to match the first $5,000 raised dollar-for-dollar.
“Do we really want to live in a city where we can shrug off a street vendor who’s moved to tears by the fact that he’s been made the butt of a joke involving an amount of wealth obscene to him, while celebrating some smartass for figuring out how to make $6 million from that joke? If this utter and gross indifference isn’t what ails us, what is?” the fundraiser who only listed their initials “JS” wrote in the GoFundMe description.
The campaign had raised more than $8,600 by Thursday night.
“I will walk to the fruit stand myself next week (after Thanksgiving) and take a video of me handing him the money myself,” JS wrote. “If I don’t find him, GoFundMe will return your money.”
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