He never imagined that his banana, sold for 25 cents, would be resold for the mind-boggling price of 6.2 million .
The New York Times searched for and found the greengrocer who sold the banana that became the protagonist of “Comedian,” the conceptual work by Maurizio Cattelan that was auctioned off by Sotheby's and purchased for $6.2 million by Chinese collector Justin Sun.
His name is Shah Alam , he is of Bengali origin and works at a fruit and vegetable stand where he sells bananas for 35 cents each, or four for a dollar. The fruit stand is located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York, a stone's throw from Central Park and the most famous museums in the world. It is located just outside the entrance of the Sotheby's auction house, and this is a fundamental detail. Because it is right there that an official of the auction house purchased the banana to change the rotten ones so as to then sell it at the last auction .
Alam is 74 years old, on Wednesday 20 November he sold the banana that a few days later would be purchased for 6.2 million euros. And when he discovered that the banana that was the protagonist of a viral story that highlights all the absurdity of art left his kiosk he burst into tears . « I am a poor man, I have never had money, how could they sell a banana at that price? A minimal part of that money would have been enough for me to change my life »
The widower moved from Bangladesh to New York to be near his daughter. He lives in the basement of a Bronx building with five other men, where he pays $500 a month in rent. “I work 12 hours a day, four days a week, and I get paid $12 an hour. A little bit of that money would have changed my life.”
(Unioneonline/L)
