Overview
- The banana that forms the perishable element of Maurizio Cattelan’s Comedian was noticed missing on Saturday, May 30, and Centre Pompidou‑Metz replaced the fruit and reported the theft to police.
- The museum said no irreversible damage was found when staff restored the installation and that the edition’s value is tied to its certificate of authenticity and the protocol for display, not the fresh banana.
- Perpetrators remain unidentified and at large, and this is the second time the Metz branch has had to replace the banana after a visitor ate it last year; officials said they filed a complaint this time because there was no person to contact.
- Comedian has a history of public interventions that shaped its notoriety, including being eaten by David Datuna at Art Basel in 2019, by a student in Seoul in 2023, and publicly by Justin Sun after a 2024 auction purchase.
- The incident renews questions for museums about security, visitor engagement and how to balance the work’s routine replacement rules with legal action, and investigators and institutions may adjust monitoring or display protocols going forward.