You might be amazed upon seeing the caption as it reads a duct-taped banana is set to sell for $1.5 million.
But this is happening in this week during a Sotheby’s auction, as CNN reports, “The duct-taped banana could fetch up to $1.5 million this week."
However, the banana first sold in 2019 for $120,000.
More than 1,600 auction lots this week are estimated to fetch more than $1 billion — including Maurizio Cattelan’s “Comedian” (the duct-taped banana), Andy Warhol’s “New York Skyscrapers” and Rene Magritte’s “Empire of Light,” offered by major auctioneers Sotheby’s, Phillips and Christie’s.
Artists and art dealers are hoping the sales will spark a turnaround from 2023, when the market for sales of high-end art contracted 27% from the year before — the first such decrease since 2020, according to Merrill Lynch, CNN report added.
And the sales could also be a test of how the wealthy are feeling about the economy, both present and future, after President-elect Donald Trump clinched a second term just a few weeks ago.
Alex Glauber, founder of AWG Art Advisory and president of the Association of Professional Art Advisors, told the media that Trump’s victory is “likely to inject some vigor and momentum back into the market.”
That’s because many of the former president’s policies in his first term helped the wealthy get even wealthier — the kinds of customers who will be shopping at the upcoming art auctions.
“The economic policies that disproportionately benefit the wealthy should catalyze demand on both the primary market for emerging talent and secondary market for more established and branded artists,” Glauber said.
Bd-Pratidin English/ Afsar Munna
