It’s auction week in New York City, the twice-annual bonanza when this fair city plays host to the most expensive art auctions in the world. If you know just one lot from this week’s sales, it’s probably Maurizio Cattelan’s Comedian (2019), the famous piece in which the puckish sculptor duct-taped a banana to the wall at Art Basel Miami Beach. Someone who definitely understood the joke purchased that piece and is selling it at Sotheby’s this week, where it is expected to fetch around $1 million. We caught up with David Galperin, Sotheby’s head of contemporary art, to hear more about the upcoming sale.
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Could you speak a little about Sotheby’s perspective on the market for Maurizio Cattelan? What about his auction history made you want to sell Comedian?
Maurizio Cattelan is one of the defining artists of our generation and a brilliant provocateur. It has been several years since an important work of his has........