Kelly Crow
speaker
104 appearances
4 recordings
2 series
first heard Dec 2024
last heard 14 May
Kelly Crow’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in May 2026 with 1.
Appearances
Who is on the banana phone, if you will?
We should. We have to, actually. I don't know why I wasn't more prepared with this.
The instructions are closely guarded, and the general public isn't allowed to see them. It also serves as the main proof of ownership. Are there instructions in there for what you're supposed to do when the banana eventually rots after like a few days?
What is stopping me from just going to the store and buying duct tape and a banana and taping it up at eye level and saying that I now own the banana art?
The artist behind Comedian is a man named Maurizio Catalan. He's an Italian artist who became famous for creating outrageous works and sculptures, like a series of taxidermied horses hanging from a ceiling and a statue of the Pope getting hit by a meteor. In 2011, Catalan told the art world he had retired, but he didn't stay on the sidelines for long. And in 2019, he got an idea.
The grenade definitely went off. Comedian went viral at that 2019 Art Basel. It drew massive crowds and got turned into memes and splashed onto T-shirts. Catalan made five versions of the banana, and each one sold. Why do you think this piece of art resonates so much with people?
How did he feel about the fact that this middle finger was like being celebrated? Yeah.
After the break, the banana arrives in New York and tests a slippery art market. The banana hit the auction houses when people in the art market were feeling pretty rotten. It had been in a slump for about two years, with sales down across the board. Prices for the world's top artists have fallen by as much as half.
To do that, Sotheby's decided to look for a spectacle and approached one of the owners of Comedian.
How did the auction go?
Was it bananas?
B-A-N-A-N-A-S.
Did you put your phone up and take a picture of the banana?
Did you finally get your banana selfie?
Don't worry, Mr. Auctioneer, we got your jokes. There were seven different bidders for the banana, and eventually one emerged as the winner.
After taxes and fees, the total bill was $6.2 million. The buyer said he intended to pay for it in cryptocurrency. Who bought the banana?
I was just going to say, in some ways, the banana reminds me of NFTs because... An NFT, it's just this digital piece of art, but the thing that you own is the certificate that proves that you own it. And the banana is kind of the same way. It's, you know, it's ephemeral, it's disposable, but it's the certificate that you have that says, I own that banana, that concept.
After winning comedian at the Sotheby's auction, Sun ate the banana at a live stream press conference. He said, quote, it's much better than other bananas. Comedian was one of many big sales and a surprisingly good month for the art world. November, which is usually an important bellwether for art markets, saw more than a billion dollars worth of art change hands at the world's auction houses.
So what do you think this auction says about the state of the art market right now?
So, Kelly, if this banana sold for $6.2 million total, if you had $6.3 million, would you have bid on the banana?
Showing 81–100 of 104 · page 5 of 6
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