24/10/2001
by James Goulder

After British and American rock stars rallied to the US flag at two marathon concerts in New York and Washington last weekend, it’s now the turn of I love NY-Art Benefit - a city wide art exhibition and sale to be held at over 150 New York art galleries from October the 26^th to November the 3^rd. Participating artists and galleries will donate artworks to be sold to benefit the families of the victims of the World Trade Center disaster on September the 11^th. Underwriting all administrative costs, the Robin Hood relief fund will distribute 100% of the money raised to the most effective charities helping victims’ families, rescue workers, and all others impacted by the economic consequences of this tragedy.

The bulk of the benefit sale comprises photographic works or works on paper with prices ranging from $ 500–20,000 (€ 560-22,500) dating from 1900 to the present day. Though scarce, paintings and sculpture are available. Of note on the painting front are Japanese painter Hiroshi Sugito’s Untitled, 2001, an acrylic on canvas, measuring 28 x 28 cm, on sale for $ 1,600 (€ 1,796) from Nicole Klagsbrun as well as Luc Tuyman’s Absence, an oil on canvas from the same year, priced at $ 160,000 (€ 179,646) and Toba Khedoori’s 2001 Untitled, a wax and ink on paper at $ 20,000 (€ 22,455), both paintings from David Zwirner, Inc. The same gallery is also donating the best pick of the sculptures. British artist Ian Dawson’s 2001 Untitled (Hangars), a colourful arrangement of plastic coat hangers is priced at $ 2,700 (€ 3,031), Roxy Paine’s 1997 plastic mushroom Small Psilocybe Cubensis, at $ 1,200 (€ 1,347) and Ron Mueck’s 2001 plaster fetus Untitled, at $ 15,000 (€ 16,840).

Photographs include the classic 1887 Animal Locomotion Plate 267 by Eadweard Muybridge priced at $ 1,000 (€ 1,122) from Laurence Miller Gallery and 1940’s New York hack Weegee’s Hysterical Girl with Cello Rescued at a Fire, a gelatin silver print costing $ 800 (€ 898) from Lucy von Brachel. Also on sale are the contemporary Soliloquy Series (Figure in Front of Steps) by Iranian artist Shirin Neshat, a gelatin silver print from 1999 priced $ 7,900 (€ 8,850) from Barbara Gladstone gallery as well as Michal Rovner’s One-Person Game Against Nature #50, 1992/93, a c-print, priced at $ 2,500 (€ 2,800) from Barbara Mathes Gallery. Other donated works from the ultra-fashionable young American female photographers include: Nikki S. Lee’s The Tourist Project (2) from 1997, a Fujiflex print from Leslie Tonkonow Artworks and projects priced at $ 2,800 (€ 3,143); Malerie Marder’s 1998 Untitled, a c-print, priced at $ 3,000 (€ 3,368); Katy Grannan’s Brother & Sister, Redhook, NY, from 1999, a c-print, costing $ 1,000 (€ 1,122) from Artemis Greenberg Van Doren gallery; and Dana Hoey’s 2000 Passages, a set of 2 cibachrome prints at $ 2,000 (€ 2,250) from Blaire Dessent. A New York benefit would seem incomplete without a reference to Andy Warhol. This is provided by Billy Name’s Andy On the Telephone, from 1965, a museum provenance black-and-white photograph, 35.5 x 28 cm, at $ 1,800 (€ 2,020) from Modern Culture at The Gershwin Hotel.

Contemporary prints include a 1998 collage and mixed media by Arturo Herrera entitled Untitled DIA #21 at $ 2,500 (€ 2,800) from Brent Sikkema, Xavier Veilhan’s 2000 Homme au cire, a laminated digital inkjet print mounted on PVC, 60 x 40 cm at $ 1,000 (€ 1,122) from the Sandra Gering gallery and Fiona Banner’s 1999 Marker Pen Wide, a graphite on colour screenprint, 92 x 63 cm at $ 1,500 (€ 1,684) from Murray and Guy. Brooke Alexander offers LA existentialist cartoonist Raymond Pettibon’s Untitled (from Plots on Loan II), a 2000 lithograph in edition of 35 editions at $ 1,500 (€ 1,684), an offset lithograph by Martin Kippenberger at $ 300 (€ 337) and Jessica Stockholder’s 2000 Untitled monoprint at $ 1,200 (€ 1,347).

How the works will be exhibited is up to the galleries. Some will stage specific benefit exhibitions, some will designate works from their current exhibitions, while others will have works shown in their viewing rooms and offices. With similar events being organised in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Santa Fe, it seems that the American artworld has put its personal ambitions aside for the time being to together come to terms with a changed New York. (James Goulder)