A much-publicized art piece made up of a single banana taped to a wall has sold for $6.2 million.
一件广为人知的艺术作品，由一根用胶带粘在墙上的香蕉组成，售价为 620 万美元。
The sale happened Wednesday night during an auction in New York City at famous art seller Sotheby’s. The work, called Comedian, was sold to cryptocurrency businessman Justin Sun. He is a Chinese collector and founder of the cryptocurrency company Tron. Sun placed the winning bid over the phone and the sale was completed in cryptocurrency.
此次拍卖发生在周三晚上，纽约市著名艺术品卖家苏富比拍卖行举行的一场拍卖会上。这部名为喜剧演员的作品被卖给了加密货币商人孙宇晨。他是一位中国收藏家，也是加密货币公司Tron的创始人。Sun 通过电话中标，并以加密货币完成了销售。
Before the auction, Sotheby’s said the unusual art piece was expected to bring in at least $1.5 million. But the price quickly started rising after the auction began, with people bidding inside the auction room, as well as on the phone and online.
拍卖前，苏富比表示，这件不寻常的艺术品预计将带来至少 150 万美元的收入。但拍卖开始后，价格迅速上涨，人们在拍卖室内、电话和网上竞价。
The art piece had already sold three times for prices between $120,000 and $150,000, The Associated Press reported.
据美联社报道，这件艺术品已售出三次，售价在 12 万至 15 万美元之间。
Sun said in a statement after the auction that Comedian "is not just an artwork." He added that the piece "bridges the worlds of art, memes, and the cryptocurrency community.”
孙在拍卖后的一份声明中表示，《喜剧演员》“不仅仅是一件艺术品”。他补充说，这件作品“架起了艺术、模因和加密货币社区之间的桥梁”。
Sun said he planned to eat the banana, as at least two onlookers did when the artwork was presented at places around the world. Sotheby’s says the fruit was always meant to be replaced repeatedly, along with the duct tape.
孙说，他打算吃香蕉，当这件艺术品在世界各地展出时，至少有两名旁观者这样做了。苏富比表示，水果和胶带总是需要反复更换。
The work was created by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan. It was first presented in 2019 at the Art Basel Miami Beach show in Miami, Florida. The piece quickly led to much public discussion about what should be considered art.
该作品由意大利艺术家毛里齐奥·卡特兰创作。它于 2019 年在佛罗里达州迈阿密举行的巴塞尔艺术展迈阿密海滩展上首次亮相。这件作品很快引起了公众关于什么应该被视为艺术的广泛讨论。
Comedian belongs to a kind of art known as conceptual artwork. A conceptual piece is one in which the idea or meaning behind the work is more important than the finished object itself.
喜剧演员属于一种被称为观念艺术的艺术。概念性作品是指作品背后的想法或意义比成品本身更重要的作品。
The head of contemporary art at Sotheby’s is David Galperin. He told the AP he understands the piece’s popularity because it is highly provocative. Provocative describes something likely to produce a strong reaction and much public debate.
苏富比当代艺术主管是大卫·加尔佩林 (David Galperin)。他告诉美联社，他理解这部作品的受欢迎程度，因为它极具挑衅性。挑衅性描述的是可能引起强烈反应和大量公众辩论的事情。
“What Cattelan is really doing is turning a mirror to the contemporary art world,” Galperin said. He added that he thinks Comedian can cause people to question what values should be attached to artworks and what can be defined as artwork.
“卡特兰真正所做的是成为当代艺术世界的一面镜子，”加尔佩林说。他补充说，他认为喜剧演员可以让人们质疑艺术品应该赋予什么价值以及什么可以定义为艺术品。
“What you buy when you buy Cattelan’s Comedian is not the banana itself, but a certificate of authenticity,” Galperin said. That document, he added, gives the owner permission to reproduce the banana and duct tape on their own wall as an original artwork by the artist.
“当你购买卡特兰喜剧演员时，你购买的不是香蕉本身，而是一份真品证书，”加尔佩林说。他补充说，该文件允许所有者将香蕉和胶带复制到自己的墙上，作为艺术家的原创艺术品。
The sale of Comedian came shortly after Sotheby’s auctioned off a famed artwork in the Water Lilies series by French painter Claude Monet. That piece sold on Monday for $65.5 million.
在苏富比拍卖法国画家克劳德·莫奈的《睡莲》系列著名艺术品后不久，《喜剧演员》就被出售了。该作品于周一以 6550 万美元的价格售出。
When asked to compare Cattelan's simple wall art to major works like Monet's, Galperin said that form of art, called impressionism, was not taken seriously when that movement first began.
当被问及将卡特兰的简单墙壁艺术与莫奈等主要作品进行比较时，加尔佩林表示，印象派这种艺术形式在这场运动刚开始时并没有受到认真对待。
“No important, profound, meaningful artwork of the past 100 years or 200 years, or our history for that matter, did not provoke some kind of discomfort when it was first unveiled,” Galperin said.
加尔佩林说：“过去 100 年或 200 年的任何重要、深刻、有意义的艺术品，或者我们的历史，在首次亮相时都会引起某种不适。”
