State drops case against artist who vandalized $120,000 banana exhibit at Art Basel
Street artist Rod Webber walked into Miami Beach District Court on Wednesday with a banana in one hand and a stack of court papers in the other.
He walked out a free man — and he ate the banana.
State prosecutors dropped a criminal mischief charge against Webber, who was arrested in December after vandalizing the now famous white wall at Art Basel Miami Beach where an Italian artist taped a $120,000 banana.
Webber, who is based in Massachusetts, drew attention to the suicide of sexual offender Jeffrey Epstein by writing “Epstien didn’t kill himself” in red lipstick on the exhibit wall at the Emmanuel Perrotin art gallery inside the Miami Beach Convention Center. The misspelling is on purpose.
“I think this is a big victory for art,” Webber said. “They can’t decide what art is.”
Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan’s banana art piece, titled “Comedian,” dominated conversations around Art Basel because of its simplicity and the artist’s asking price. The banana itself was eaten by another performance artist before Webber decided to test the boundaries of artistic expression.
The charge was dropped because Art Basel, the listed victim, did not want to cooperate with the prosecution, according to the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office. The globally renowned art fair said its wall was not damaged, and no money was spent to clean up Webber’s stunt.
“Given that Art Basel wishes to avoid the publicity that Mr. Webber is intent on creating, we have informed [the prosecutor on the case] that it is Art Basel’s position that the criminal case be dismissed,” Bob Goodman, Art Basel’s Florida representative, wrote to Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernández Rundle in late January.
This story was originally published February 27, 2020 at 12:11 PM.
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