Banana drama: ‘hungry’ South Korean student eats $120,000 artwork

A South Korean art student who ate a banana that formed part of a renowned installation by the Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan said he did so because he was “hungry”.

Noh Huyn-soo was filmed brazenly removing the banana, which was duct-taped on to a wall at the Leeum Museum of Art in Seoul, unpeeling it and eating it in front of stunned onlookers before reattaching the banana skin to the wall using the same tape and walking off with a satisfied grin.

The incident was recorded by a friend of Noh, a student at Seoul National University, and lasted for over a minute.

When the museum asked Noh why he ate the banana, he replied that he was hungry after skipping breakfast, according to the Korea Herald. He later told the broadcaster KBS that he thought “damaging a work of modern art could also be [interpreted as] artwork” and that he came up with the idea to reattach the peel as “a joke”.

He added: “I thought it would be interesting … isn’t it taped there to be eaten?”

The banana, part of Cattelan’s Comedian installation, gets replaced every two or three days.

Cattelan, a sculptor and performance artist based in New York, was reportedly informed about the incident and simply replied: “No problem.”

It is not the first time a banana from the work has been scoffed. During the work’s debut exhibit at Miami Art Basel in 2019 a banana was removed and eaten by the performance artist David Datuna.

Datuna later told the Guardian that while he considered Cattelan to be “a genius”, he took issue with the huge amount of money made from a banana that cost 20 cents.

The first and second editions on display at Miami Art Basel both sold for $120,000 (£95,640), and another was put up for sale for $150,000 before Datuna showed up to eat the fruit. “I have travelled in 67 countries around the world in the last three years, and I see how people live,” Datuna said. “Millions are dying without food. Then he puts three bananas on the wall for half a million dollars?”

Cattelan, who was born in Padua, is also known for provocative artworks that challenge popular culture. One – an 18-carat gold toilet called America and valued at £1m – made headlines in September 2019 after it was ripped from its display wall during an overnight robbery at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire.

A middle-finger sculpture by Cattelan – known as Il Dito (the finger) but officially called L.O.V.E – opposite the stock exchange in Milan was vandalised by environmental activists in January.

生词记录

renowned 有名的，闻名的，受尊敬的

installation 装置艺术

brazenly 毫不隐瞒地，明目张胆地

duck tape 强力胶带

peel 剥去；（水果或蔬菜的）外皮

stunned 目瞪口呆

attach 附上，固定，连接

grin 咧嘴笑

herald 预告，宣传；预示…来临；预兆

broadcaster 广播员，节目主持人；电视台，广播公司

interpret 诠释，说明；理解为，领会；演绎；翻译，口译

sculptor 雕塑家

scoff 嘲笑，讥笑；狼吞虎咽地吃

debut 首次登台，首次亮相

take issue with sth 对···持强烈不满，很不赞同

provocative 挑衅的，使人生气的，煽动的；引发思考的，启发性的

carat 克拉（钻石的重量单位），开（黄金的纯度单位）

rip 撕裂，撕破，划破；迅速扯开，猛力去除

robbery 抢劫，抢劫罪

sculpture 雕塑，雕像

vandalise 故意破坏，肆意破坏（尤指公共财物）