How do you insure a US$6.2 million banana?

Clue: It is not a specific piece of fruit on the wall that is being insured.

- Paul J. Davis

It's the kind of story that makes you roar with laughter or indignation. A crypto entrepreneur just spent US$6.2 million (S$8.4 million) on a banana duct-taped to a wall.

What's more, the ordinary Dole banana in question had been bought for just 35 US cents that morning at a fruit stand in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, according to The New York Times.

This object is a work of art called Comedian, by Maurizio Cattelan, that was sold on Nov 20 at Sotheby's. It was created in 2019 and first shown at Art Basel Miami Beach, where the Perrotin Gallery sold three editions for between US$120,000 and US$150,000 each.

Every generation gets to be outraged or befuddled by the latest iteration of what gets called "art". Impressionists like Claude Monet or Cubists like Pablo Picasso were far from the first to scandalize a cultural age, and their works are worth many millions today.

More recently, Mike Winkelmann, aka Beeple, produced a piece of purely digital art titled Everydays: The First 5000 Days, which became the first non-fungible token (NFT) sold at Christie's and fetched almost US$70 million in 2021.

There is much erudite debate about what qualifies as art, but being a financial journalist and something of a nerd, my question was: Can you insure Comedian, and what exactly would be insured?

If you're spending US$6.2 million on a banana taped to a wall, there's a big question as to what you're even buying. It's an ordinary banana. It's going to rot! Mr Justin Sun, the buyer, said he planned to eat it once the sale had gone through – and in fact "it" has been eaten before, including by rival artist David Datuna.

IT'S THE IDEA