A museum in eastern France on Sunday reported to police the theft of a banana that forms a core part of a multimillion-dollar artwork by Italian visual artist Maurizio Cattelan.
The missing fruit – which was taped to a wall to form the provocative work by Cattelan called Comedian – was noticed by a guard on Saturday to have gone missing.
An iteration of the artwork was bought by Chinese-born cryptocurrency founder Justin Sun in 2024. He forked out US$6.2 million for the work, then days later ate a banana in front of cameras in Hong Kong.
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The Pompidou-Metz museum in Lorraine, which is a branch of the famous Pompidou Centre in Paris, said in a statement it had lodged a criminal complaint for theft against persons unknown.
It also said it had replaced the banana.
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The artwork’s perishable banana centrepiece is replaced every three days to keep it contemporary.
