Open Post: Hosted By David Datuna, The Performance Artist Who Ate Art Basel’s $120,000 Duct-Taped Banana
It’s true! Someone has EATEN yesterday’s HSOTD! That probably hasn’t happened since Tanqueray’s bestie Vicki wasn’t available one night when the President was in town and Tanqueray proved that she’s a damn good sport! Ridiculous art patron/rich people show-their-asses party Art Basel made the news this week when artist Maurizio Cattelan’s Comedian (literally a banana duct-taped to a wall) sold for $120,000! TWICE. Well, hopefully one of the two French people who dropped those ducats for Comedian held on to their receipt because someone ripped the banana off the wall and ate it, according to TMZ.
Performance artist/potassium seeker David Datuna got hungry yesterday afternoon at Art Basel’s gallery in Miami. So he walked up to the wall, ripped the banana down, and ate it.
On Instagram, he called his performance “Hungry Artist” and posted some aftermath footage of what appears to be gallery personnel sitting him down to take his info. Based on what we can tell, this is actually a no-no … the banana is NOT supposed to be tampered with … although the fruit itself is allowed to be replaced on a continuous basis as needed.
That one gallery worker does look slightly irritated because she knows that France’s President Emmanuel Macron is about to declare war on us for letting his citizens’ paid-for artwork get eaten by attention whores.
After eating the banana, Datuna was escorted to a private room by security where he was met by Miami PD. He was questioned and later released without being charged with anything, although he might have to pay the gallery something. Mostly, Datuna said, everyone at the gallery seemed confused at to what to do about his brazen act of banana-eating. Datuna said he loves the artist Cattelan’s work and that his masticating of his piece was an “act of flattery.”
So if Cattelan gives permission to replace the banana when it rots, does that extend to when some dude eats it, too?
Pic: Instagram