Guy ate $120,000 banana

 Installations by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan are famously provocative, however his signature work — a banana taped to a wall — fell prey to a primary impulse: the hunger it provoked in a South Korean college student.

The art in query, comic, is a (regularly changed) duct-taped banana that is supposed to rouse everything from Charlie Chaplin's slapstick comedy to the fruit's fame as an brand of world alternate.

It spoke to Noh Huyn-soo in simpler phrases, reminding him that he had skipped breakfast that morning. in order his go to to Seoul's Leeum Museum of artwork stretched beyond noon overdue last week, Noh seized the yellow fruit and ate it, ignoring the alarmed cry of a museum staffer.

It took Noh around 1 minute to yank the banana and consume it. when he became completed, he reattached the peel to its spot on the wall.

Noh instructed the museum that he ate the artwork due to the fact he changed into hungry, according to Korean public broadcaster KBS, which aired a video of his moves that turned into recorded through his buddy.

but Noh, who research aesthetics and faith at Seoul country wide college, also opined approximately the artist's purpose in an interview with KBS, asking if the fruit — which is changed every few days, to preserve the set up searching sparkling — is supposed to be eaten.

Noh also suggested his very own movements might qualify as artwork, in place of a mere transgression, as he converted Cattelan's work and placed it back on show.

The Noh drama lasted most effective round half-hour, as museum people hooked up a 2d banana to restore Cattelan's vision.

The museum won't pursue Noh for any damages, in line with Korean news outlets. Broadcaster MBC cites team of workers as announcing that after the artist turned into told about the purloined banana, his answered that it wasn't a problem.

comic is the center-piece of a big exhibition of Cattelan's artwork on the Leeum that's occurring thru July. The banana art is even emblazoned on a unique espresso cup to bring in the 38 works.

previous iterations of comic have bought for $120,000 — which include one in 2019 that became promptly eaten by using some other artist at artwork Basel in Miami seaside. Like Noh, that artwork-eater quick proclaimed his consumption to be a piece of artwork in itself.

every other Cattelan piece titled the us — a completely useful lavatory solid in 18-karat gold — drew headlines while it become placed on display (and into use) inside the Guggenheim. however the golden throne become stolen in 2019 — days after it turned into hooked up in England's Blenheim Palace — the birthplace of Winston Churchill and hasn't been recovered.