The Pompidou-Metz museum, a branch of the Pompidou Centre in Paris, said the banana, famously taped to a wall as part of the Italian artists provocative work, was noticed missing by a guard on Saturday.

The museum reported the theft to police on Sunday and said it had lodged a criminal complaint against persons unknown.

The banana has since been replaced, in keeping with the artworks unusual maintenance routine: the perishable fruit at the heart ofComedianis changed every three days to keep the work fresh - literally - and in line with its playful challenge to ideas of artistic value.

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A fruit with a history

This is not the first time Cattelans banana has proved too tempting to leave untouched.

In July last year, a visitor to thePompidou-Metzate the fruit while it was on display. Guards intervened quickly and a replacement banana was taped to the wall. On that occasion, the museum chose not to take legal action.

Cattelan responded with characteristic mischief, saying he was disappointed the hungry visitor had eaten only the banana and not the tape as well.

This time, however, the museum said it had decided to file a criminal complaint because the perpetrator had not been identified, leaving no possibility of dialogue.

It also said the incident raised an issue of respect for the artwork, particularly as it was the second time this has happened.

Cattelans Comedian has sparked debate, disbelief and fascination since its debut atArt Basel Miami Beachin 2019, where it was offered for sale with an asking price of $120,000. The work whihc consists of a banana fixed to a wall with duct tape, quickly became one of the most talked-about pieces in contemporary art, in part because of its simplicity and in part because of the questions it raised about authorship, money, performance and the art market itself.

Its notoriety only grew whenperformance artistDavid Datuna ate the banana at the 2019 fair, saying he felt hungry. Rather than bringing the story to an end, the act helped cement Comedians place as a cheerful provocation in the art world a work that seems to invite both serious debate and comic interruption.

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Value keeps rising

Despite or perhaps because of its repeated encounters with hungry visitors and would-be participants, Comedian has continued to climb in value.

In 2024, Chinese-borncrypto entrepreneurJustin Sun paid $5.2 million for one iteration of the artwork. Days later, he ate the banana in front of cameras in Hong Kong, turning the purchase into another performance around value, ownership and spectacle.

The works physical banana is replaceable, but the concept, certificate and instructions behind it are what collectors buy. That distinction has made Comedian a striking example of how contemporary art can exist as an idea as much as an object and how even a piece of fruit can become a global cultural talking point.

Cattelan, one of Italys best-known contemporary artists, has long specialised in works that mix humour, provocation and institutional critique. Alongside Comedian, he is known for America, an 18-carat,fully functioning gold toiletthat was once offered to Donald Trump during his first term in the White House.

A fully functioning solid gold toilet, made by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, is going into public use at the Guggenheim Museum in New York on 15 September 2016.

That work also became the subject of a high-profile theft. In March, a British court found two men guilty of stealing the golden toilet during an exhibition in the United Kingdom in 2020. It had been installed atBlenheim Palace, the 18th-century stately home where wartime prime minister Winston Churchill was born.

The toilet was later broken up, and none of the gold was recovered.

For the Pompidou-Metz, the latest disappearance of Cattelans banana is more than a prank. By going to police, the museum has drawn a line between playful engagement with a famously mischievous artwork and the unauthorised removal of part of an exhibited piece.

(With newswires)

Originally published on RFI