Art Collector Who Bought a $6 Million Banana Offers to Buy 100,000 More

Views: 4078

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

The vendor who sold the banana only received a quarter for the fruit. Now the buyer of the conceptual work has offered his fruit stand a bigger payday.

A fruit stand on the Upper East Side of Manhattan has become the unlikely meeting ground between million-dollar art and street vendors. Credit…Amir Hamja for The New York Times

Published Nov. 28, 2024Updated Nov. 29, 2024, 2:31 a.m. ET

A week after a Chinese cryptocurrency entrepreneur bought an artwork composed of a fresh banana stuck to a wall with duct tape for $6.2 million at auction , the man, Justin Sun, announced a grand gesture on X. He said he planned on purchasing 100,000 bananas — or $25,000 worth of the produce — from the Manhattan stand where the original fruit was sold for 25 cents.

But at the fruit stand at East 72nd Street and York Avenue, outside the doors of the Sotheby’s auction house where the conceptual artwork was sold, the offer landed with a thud against the realities of the life of a New York City street vendor.

It would cost thousands of dollars to procure that many bananas from a Bronx wholesale market, said Shah Alam, the 74-year-old employee from Bangladesh who sold the original banana used in “Comedian,” an absurdist commentary on the art world by the Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan. And, it wouldn’t be easy to move that many bananas, which come in boxes of about 100.

And then there is the math: The net profit from the purchase of 100,000 bananas by Mr. Sun — who once bought an NFT of a pet rock for more than $600,000 — would be about $6,000.

“There’s not any profit in selling bananas,” Mr. Alam said.

Plus, as an employee who makes $12 an hour during 12-hour shifts, Mr. Alam pointed out that any money would by rights belong to the fruit stand’s owner, not him.

Reached by phone, the stand’s owner, Mohammad R. Islam, 53, who goes by Rana, said he would split any profit between himself, Mr. Alam and the six other people he employs at his two fruit stands. No one had contacted him about any such purchase, though, he said.

Mr. Islam had learned from … Read More