Art market baffled by high prices for unusual works

Maurizio Cattelan's conceptual artwork "Comedian," a banana taped with duct tape, sold for $6.24 million (Rs 59.42 crore) at Sotheby's.

The purchase of "Comedian" transferred a certificate of authenticity and instructions on how to tape a new banana, not the perishable fruit itself.

Artist Jackson Pollock created paintings by dripping, flinging, and pouring industrial enamel paint onto canvases.

In 1999, physicist Richard Taylor's team found fractal patterns in Jackson Pollock's poured canvases that increased in complexity over time.

A team from Case Western Reserve University, including Katherine Jones-Smith, Harsh Mathur, and Lawrence Krauss, later tested the fractal theory regarding Pollock's artwork.