Justin Solar walked into the room flanked by his standard entourage of bodyguards and advisers and made his approach to the stage. Behind him, a banana was duct taped in place on a white wall. On both facet, two blank-faced males in white shirts and black aprons stared into the ocean of cameras and smartphones. I puzzled what they had been pondering.
As for what I used to be pondering, it was one thing alongside the strains of how ridiculous this all was. To provide some background, on Nov. 21 Tron founder Justin Solar paid a whopping $6.2 million — together with $1 million in fee — at an public sale at Sotheby’s in New York for an paintings known as Comic. The work, created by trendy artist Maurizio Cattelan in 2019, is the aforementioned banana duct taped to the wall.
The response amongst many observers was the everyday one seen at any time when anybody spends a big sum of cash on trendy artwork: bewilderment, a little bit of disgust, a watch roll. I feel individuals who don’t like artwork can nonetheless respect the ability that goes into work or sculptures. If works like Comic or Unmade Mattress have any creative benefit, I can’t realize it. Tron’s public relations staff assured me artwork is subjective.
Nevertheless it’s memecoin season and issues with completely no intrinsic worth are very in proper now. So it was hardly shocking that shortly after shopping for the banana-and-duct-tape combo, Solar mentioned he deliberate to eat it.
This has occurred twice earlier than: As soon as in 2019, when a efficiency artist took it from the Artwork Basel in Miami shortly after it was offered for $120,000. Then once more by a South Korean artwork pupil on the Leeum Museum of Artwork in Seoul in 2023.
It doesn’t have an effect on the paintings. The banana and duct tape are changed frequently anyway.
The consumption happened on the 5-star Peninsula Lodge within the Tsim Sha Tsui space of Hong Kong on Friday, a stone’s throw from among the metropolis’s most infamous doss homes.
The gang consisted of a mixture of journalists and folks from the artwork and crypto industries, Tron and Sotheby’s staff and so-called key opinion leaders (KOLs). I imply the kind of people that put on garments that seem like they got here from the native market, however in all probability price hundreds of {dollars} — U.S. {dollars}, not Hong Kong. One fellow journalist had flown all the best way from Shanghai only for the occasion. Round us within the lobby, servers in white swimsuit jackets served wine and different refreshments.
An info board close to the doorway mentioned Solar sought to immerse himself within the efficiency artwork of Cattelan, with Comic as his muse. “He envisions this iconic piece as a catalyst for sparking dialogues and exchanges,” the textual content learn.
Different folks I spoke to in attendance had been extra skeptical, characterizing the occasion as little greater than a advertising gimmick.
It’s not the primary time Solar has courted the limelight. In 2019, he paid $4.57 million at a charity public sale to have lunch with Warren Buffett. In April this yr, he commissioned a theme track for Tron written by legendary film composer Hans Zimmer.
He additionally served as Grenada’s everlasting consultant to the World Commerce Group and, extra not too long ago, turned prime minister of the libertarian micronation Liberland, which is positioned in a floodplain on the Croatian facet of the Danube.
Solar has additionally made the headlines in far much less whimsical methods. Final yr the U.S. Securities and Change Fee charged him with fraud and different securities regulation violations, together with “fraudulently manipulating the secondary marketplace for TRX by in depth wash buying and selling.” Solar responded on X that the swimsuit was with out benefit.
In the meantime, his legal professionals have threatened media retailers with authorized motion after they report on Tron’s use by terrorist teams.
Maybe the hope was that the banana would convey everybody collectively and allow them to neglect about this. Certainly, Solar appears to imagine the banana is the beginning of some form of mass motion. “Is it merely a banana or one thing belonging to all of us?” he requested at one level.
He in contrast the method of changing the banana each few days to the altering Chinese language dynasties over the millennia. He praised the banana for the way a lot visitors and a focus it had introduced himself and Tron. He famous that the banana’s worth went past the boundaries of cash.
Then he ate it.
November in Hong Kong appears to simply be the prime season for odd crypto occasions. Luckily, not like ApeFest final November, this time no person was hospitalized. As a substitute, upon leaving attendees acquired a reproduction of Comic together with a roll of duct tape and a spare banana.
A minimum of that’s my breakfast tomorrow sorted.