35 cent banana. Duct tape. And a bare wall. That’s what welcomed visitors at Art Basel Miami Beach in December 2019. Since its inception, Maurizio Cattelan’s “Comedian” quickly became the art-world’s most talked about fruit. And… the world’s most expensive banana, priced at a modest $120,000 to $150,000.
“Comedian” sparked outrage in the art world. For some, it was proof that the art world had lost the plot. And for others, it was a brilliant masterstroke of conceptual genius. Who was right? We cannot judge. But what we do know, is that every single person suddenly had an opinion.
And now, those opinions get to be shared in Portugal at the Serralves Contemporary Art museum in Porto. As part of the “Sussurro” exhibition, the museum is exhibiting a collection displaying a deep dive into Catellan’s rich world, bringing together works rooted in history, trauma, transition, and irony. All the emotional twilight zones that Cattelan loves to occupy.
Image by Fundação Serralves
It’s exactly in these hanging, transitional moments that Cattalan thrives. The time between childhood and adulthood, between life and death, between historical periods, laughter and sobs. Between emotions. These are depicted through sculptures installed within the museum and alongside Serralves Park.
The exhibition is curated by none other than Philippe Vergne, the director of the Serralves Contemporary Art museum whose resume boasts the Museum of Contemporary Art in LA, Dia Art Foundation in New York, and the Walker Art Centre in Minneapolis.
This exhibition highlights that Cattelan’s real medium has never been fruit, or marble, or taxidermy. It’s us. Our reactions. Our discomfort. Our laughter that catches a little too sharply in the throat. At Serralves, “Sussurro” extends that game on a grander stage. Visitors wander through works that feel like traps, jokes, memorials, and psychological mirrors all at once. Cattelan doesn’t tell us what to think; he nudges us into the uneasy, liminal space where thinking begins.
And that may be why “Comedian” caused such an eruption. It exposed the tender nerve at the heart of contemporary art: that value is fragile, context is everything, and meaning is a negotiation we all participate in. Now, in Porto, that negotiation continues. No spectacle of duct tape required.
Images: Gagosian Instagram
