It’s the pizza de résistance!
The owner of a Greenpoint pizzeria has cooked up a cheesy homage to the absurd banana duct-taped-to-a-wall “art” that sold for $120,000 in Miami last week, and hopes his own food-inspired piece will fetch a six-figure price.
Fornino owner Michael Ayoub duct-taped a margherita pie to the wall of his Manhattan Avenue shop entitled “Pizza,” along with signage advertising its sale for a meager $100,000.
So far, he hasn’t gotten any offers.
“I took a crack at it,” said Ayoub. “I’m still waiting on a buyer though. Cattelan got four, I didn’t get any!”
Ayoub unveiled his masterpiece on the pizzeria’s Instagram page Monday as a tribute to Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan’s now-infamous piece “Comedian,” which, simply put, is a banana duct-taped to a wall.
“I bowed to Mr Cattelan for inspiration,” he said.
And while the aptly named “Pizza” reigns as the chef’s magnum opus, Ayoub happens to moonlight as an accomplished glassblower, and the culinary artist has displayed works including a massive chandelier at his Greenpoint pizza shop before.
Cattelan’s fruit art caused a stir at the Miami-based gallery Art Basel when an anonymous buyer purchased the rights to the potassium-rich piece for a whopping $120,000 — only for Brooklyn-based performance artist David Datuna to tear the pricey fruit off the wall and eat it, upon which the gallery had the piece “taken down.”
Ayoub’s pizza piece has garnered some attention of its own since he hung it up Monday, with passersby taking pictures, as younger customers ask the tough questions.
“There was this family and the kid says, ‘daddy daddy the pizza is on the wall’ and the father goes, ‘it’s a very long story,’” Ayoub said.
For reasons of hygiene, the chef will replace his “art” with a new pie on a daily basis. He attributes any difficulty in selling the pie to his modest reputation within the art community.
“I wanted to put the price a little lower because I’m not as well-known of an artist.”
