Buyer of $6.2M ‘art’ banana attempts to do right by elderly fruit vendor who sold it for 35 cents

A Manhattan fruit vendor is heartbroken after a banana he sold for 35 cents was resold for $6.2 million at an art auction.

The story begins on Wednesday, Nov. 20th, when “nearly blind” fruit vendor Shah Alam, a 74-year-old immigrant, sold the banana to Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan.

Alam makes $12/hour running the fruit stand and “lives in a basement apartment in the Bronx with 4 other men,” according to a GoFundMe fundraiser started in his honor:

Cattelan subsequently affixed the banana to a board with duct tape to make a point about the absurdity of modern art and then sold it at the aforementioned art auction to Justin Sun, reportedly the Chinese founder of a cryptocurrency platform.

A few days after the sale, a reporter with the New York Times approached Alam and told him of the sale. In response, he cried.

“I am a poor man,” he said. “I have never had this kind of money; I have never seen this kind of money.”

In fairness, Cattelan evidently “was not compensated for the” sale, according to the Times. The sale was reportedly made on behalf of someone else. He was nevertheless thrilled by the price.

“Honestly, I feel fantastic,” he said. “The auction has turned what began as a statement in Basel into an even more absurd global spectacle. In that way, the work becomes self-reflexive: The higher the price, the more it reinforces its original concept.”

Basel was a reference to the Art Basel Miami Beach, an international art fair where he first exhibited the idea in 2019.

Sun meanwhile was also thrilled by his purchase:

As for Alam, he remains in the same dire straits as before.

“A widower from Dhaka, Bangladesh, Mr. Alam was a civil servant before he moved to the United States in 2007 to be closer to one of his two children, a married daughter who lives on Long Island,” the Times notes. “He said his home is a basement apartment with five other men in Parkchester, in the Bronx.”

“For his room, he pays $500 a month in rent, he said, speaking in Bengali. His fruit stand shifts are 12 hours long, four days a week; for each hour on his feet, in all weather, the owner pays him $12. His English is limited mostly to the prices and names of his wares — apples, three for $2; small pears, $1 each,” the reporting continues.

Alam for his part doesn’t understand the hype around the banana.

“Those who bought it, what kind of people are they?” he rhetorically asked the Times. “Do they not know what a banana is?”

Evidently not.

According to the Times, he feels as if the point being made by Cattelan’s work, which is called “Comedian,” is being made at his expense.

In an email to the Times, Cattelan alleged he was affected by Alam’s response to this whole ordeal.

“The reaction of the banana vendor moves me deeply, underscoring how art can resonate in unexpected and profound ways,” he wrote. “However, art, by its nature, does not solve problems — if it did, it would be politics.”

Mr. Sun meanwhile wrote that he was moved by Alam’s response and that “his role in this artwork is not taken lightly.”

“His reaction highlights…. It’s a poignant reminder…..unnoticed,” he added.

The only possible good news is Sun has decided to buy 100,000 bananas from Alam’s stand, though as noted before, he’s not the owner of the stand. Still, maybe the owner will share the proceeds?

Vivek Saxena

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