Half-blind grocer who sold 28p banana that became £5m art sensation DEVASTATED he didn’t get a slice & says ‘I’m poor’

After his 28p banana became a 5 million viral success, a DEVASTATED half-blind grocer demands his share of the art wealth.

A 74-year-old fruit vendor in New York who makes only nine pounds an hour lamented, “I’m a poor man,” in a perplexed reaction to the million-pound purchase.

Shah’s banana, which was said to have cost 1.2 million dollars, was purchased and duct taped to a wall in an art museum earlier this month.

A “profound” piece of experimental art, “Comedian” was created by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan.

Last Wednesday at Sotheby’s in New York, cryptocurrency tycoon Justin Sun paid $4.8 million for it.

Salah’s banana initially cost 28p, therefore this is a startling 1,745,230,000% price increase.

“I am a poor man,” Shah said to The New York Times. This type of money is unlike anything I have ever seen or owned.

What sort of individuals are the people who purchased it? Are they ignorant of the definition of a banana?In the Bronx’s Parkchester neighborhood, the struggling fruit vendor is a widower who spends $394 per month to live in a basement apartment with five other men.

Regardless of the weather, he works twelve hours a day, four days a week at the same fruit stand on York Avenue and East 72nd Street.

In a press release, the banana’s new owner stated: “This is more than just a piece of art.

“It symbolizes a cultural phenomena that unites the bitcoin community, memes, and the realm of art.

“I believe this piece will inspire more thought and discussion in thefutureand will become a part of history.”

According to amusing reports, Justin will have to build the sculpture himself.

This will entail attaching the banana to a wall using duct tape.

A certificate of authenticity and installation instructions will also be sent to him.

However, the billionaire paid the fee to be able to duplicate the idea rather than purchasing the original banana and duct tape.

People have eaten the banana at earlier exhibitions of the artwork, with one student from Seoul National University in South Korea claiming to have done so out of hunger.

REACTIONS TO SHAH’S STORY

In an X post to his 3.6 million followers, Justin shared a plan to support Shah’s community.

He wrote: “I have chosen to purchase 100,000 bananas from Mr. Shah Alam’s stand in the Upper East Side of New York as a token of my gratitude.

“He will use his stand to distribute these bananas for free all around the world.

Mr. Alam’s contribution to this remarkable piece of art is invaluable, emphasizing the limitless potential and worth concealed in regular existence.

“I’m hoping that my project will help more people learn about his tale, and I plan to visit his fruit stand in person someday to thank him once more.

More than 50,000 people have watched the post.

The banana vendor’s response, according to Maurizio, “moves me deeply, underscoring how art can resonate in unexpected and profound ways,” he said.

But by definition, art cannot resolve issues. It would be political if it did.

UnnamedFor the fruit vendor, New Yorker started a GoFundMe page and pledged to match the first $5,000 ($3,492) donated dollar for dollar.

“Do we really want to live in a city where we can dismiss a street vendor who is in tears because he was made the butt of a joke about a wealth that is obscene to him, while celebrating some smart**s for figuring out how to make $6 million from that joke?” the fundraiser asked.

“What else is wrong with us if not this complete and egregious indifference?

There were differing opinions about the original work, with some people wondering if it was intended to be regarded as parody.

Maurizio is frequently seen as a “trickster artist,” according to Chlo Cooper Jones, an assistant professor at Columbia University School of the Arts.

She thinks: “He frequently looks for methods to provoke us, not merely for the purpose of provocation, but to challenge us to examine some of the darkest aspects of ourselves and history.

“What Cattelan is really doing is turning a mirror to the contemporary art world and asking questions, provoking thought about how we ascribe value to artworks, what we define as an artwork,” stated David Galperin, head of contemporary art at Sotheby’s.

When they were originally unveiled, no significant, profound, and meaningful piece of art from the last 100 or 200 years—or our history, for that matter—did not cause some sort of unease.

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