Boston Center for the Arts Continues Raising AIDS Awareness
Posted by: artbenefits on: December 8, 2009
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In its 19th annual display at the Boston Center for the Arts, this year’s Medicine Wheel continues to raise AIDS awareness. The 2009 Medicine Wheel, entitled “Luminaria” contains touching phrases, memories of loved ones and special mementos from those who have passed away. The installation is made up of a 45-foot lantern (which has 650 faces printed on white canvas) and encompasses 36 pedestals.
Artistic director Michael Dowling explains the process of creating the Medicine Wheel,
“At first we thought the faces would be people who maybe had died from AIDS or suffered from AIDS and we sent out a call looking for photos and we didn’t really get much of a response … I think part of it was awareness around AIDS is waning. People aren’t really looking at it as a death and dying disease so much anymore. And maybe it’s just too painful to sort of revisit those memories. Then I sort of made the decision to send out an invitation to collect people’s light, the light of a memory of somebody, the light of somebody who’s still in your life, the light of yourself, and if we could join those lights together, then we would have this giant Luminaria, this giant lantern, so I guess I started chasing people’s lights and that was actually easier because the truth is in 2009 all of our lives have been changed by AIDS whether we admit it or not.”
Even after the second call, Dowling still needed more photographs to fill out the exhibit, so his team turned to the actual Medicine Wheel for inspiration.
“We still didn’t have enough photographs so we actually opened up the pedestals of Medicine Wheel, because every year people leave offerings to the shrines that have been put in the pedestals, and took out hundreds of photographs from the pedestals and used those as a memorial wall to people who had died and been lost to HIV and AIDS over the last 18 years that Medicine Wheel has been running,” said Dowling.
The stunning use of fully internal lighting serves not only a functional purpose, but also a poetic one. The internal lighting is meant to be a metaphor for looking to the light within us.
Downing credits the positive outcome of the installation to the young artists and studio assistants who have helped him (several of whom have their own personal connections to AIDS.)
While awareness remains the main purpose and theme of “Luminara,” other themes like life and remembrance are also present.
Like the rest of Medicine Wheel, the exhibit was participatory, as attendees entered the giant embryo [by Agathi Pavlidis, a senior at the Art Institute of Boston] and rested on the circular bedding within the structure. Pavlidis said her experiences working with Dowling led to her extending herself as an artist and creating the work.
“He really just lets you explore yourself as an artist,” she said. “He’s there for guidance but he’s really just giving you an opportunity to kind of test boundaries and delve into a project head on. The best way to learn is to have these challenges, and you’re not going to really know what they are and how to deal with them unless you actually do them. So he’s just really giving you an opportunity to learn through experience.”
To read the entire article associated with this story, click here.
For more information on the exhibition (or to contribute), click here.
For a list of art events going on around Boston, click here.
Own a Piece of Red Cross History
Posted by: artbenefits on: November 19, 2009
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The American Red Cross has been the nation’s leading emergency response organization since Clara Barton founded it in 1881. Several annual charitable events and various fundraisers are held to raise money for the organization, but over the past couple of years, the Red Cross has been using its own resources (in a benefit of sorts) to help alleviate its $33.5 million operating deficit (which is down from two years ago, when the organization’s staggering debt stood at $209 million).
One solution of cutting the deficit? An auction. The organization is selling various pieces of its iconic history at an online auction through Heritage Auction Galleries. While most don’t think of the red cross, whose core mission is disaster relief, as having a stockpile of art (or really anything worth bidding on at an auction), the organization does have quite the collection of auction-worthy items.
Over the past century plus, the Red Cross has acquired hundreds of thousands of objects, images, books and reels of film – many of which date back to before the organization’s founding. Rose Percy, a 23 inch wax doll adorned with Tiffany jewelry, first sold for $1,200 in 1864. Today’s starting bid for the antique is $5,000. Also on sale, a vast collection of uniforms (such as those worn in World War I and the Vietnam War), important documents (like one issued by the Swedish Red Cross in 1955 that allowed an Austrian Jewish woman to flee the Nazis and ultimately survive the Holocaust), assorted Christmas seals, international stamps, and dozens of original Red Cross illustrations.
While the Red Cross plans to hold on to its most historically significant art and objects in order to honor the donors who graciously provided them (including paintings by Norman Rockwell, Howard Chandler Christy, and Henry Ossawa Tanner), the eclectic items available at the online auction will not only provide bidders with a pieces of important history, but also give them the chance to contribute to a great organization.
To read the entire article from the Associated Press, click here
To view the auction and bid on items, click here
Imagine on Canvas: A Benefit Devoted to Helping Sick Children
Posted by: artbenefits on: October 26, 2009
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One-hundred percent of the money raised at the November 2nd benefit at FACT (the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology) in Liverpool will go to help support the world-famous Alder Hey Children’s Hospital (via the Alder Hey Imagine Appeal). Various artists have come together to donate dozens of pieces to the benefit.
At least one of the artists, Elaine Preece Stanley, has a very close relationship to the hospital. As an article from About My Area notes,
Elaine, who wanted to help the hospital as her young daughter Grace is an inpatient on the hospital’s cancer ward said: “Our daughter, Grace, was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in January 2009.
“This news was devastating; to be told that your child has cancer, it was news that was to turn our world upside down, our emotions went into overdrive and we stepped into a new world of the unknown.
“As an artist, I naturally wanted to give something back to thank everybody at the Oncology ward for everything they have done and will do throughout my life.”
Because there is such a broad range of art (including paintings of famous Liverpool landmarks, jazz musicians, and sketches of the Tower bridge of London), organizers are hoping the benefit, the first of its kind, will attract an eclectic mix of art lovers and do-gooders.
The benefit will take place on Monday, November 2nd from 4:00 t0 7:30 PM.
First Annual Paperball at the Museum of Arts and Design
Posted by: artbenefits on: October 12, 2009
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FIRST ANNUAL MAD PAPERBALL
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2009, 6pm – MIDNIGHT
An art, fashion, design, and dining gala benefit cebrating MAD’s One Year Anniversary
6:00 PM PREMIUM TICKET @ $1,000 each ($900 Tax-Deductible) (Limited to 125) Be the first in line to enter and one of the first to dine in MAD’s new Ninth Floor Restaurant at a seated dinner with celebrity guests (8:00pm). Also includes a full page ad in the PAPERBALL Journal; private viewing with designers of one-of-a-kind paper dresses and fashion accessories; access to a Design Lounge; edible art and celebrity chef demonstrations; curatorial tour of Slash: Paper Under the Knife; and A-List DJ sets and dancing until midnight.
6:00 PM DESIGN TICKET @ $500 each ($470 Tax-Deductible) Be the first to enter and admits you to the Design Lounge (6:00 – 7:30pm) hosted by MAD’s Design Council. Enjoy a glass of champagne and intimate chat with the Design Council, participating artists, and host committee, and pick-up your limited edition artist-designed paper lapel pin. Also includes private viewing with fashion designers of the one-of-a-kind paper silent auction objects; edible art and celebrity chef demonstrations; curatorial tour of Slash: Paper Under the Knife; and A-List DJ sets and dancing until midnight.
7:30 PM VIP TICKET @ $350 each ($330 Tax-Deductible) Preview of Slash: Paper Under the Knife; view one-of-a-kind silent auction; access to VIP Cocktail Lounge (7:30 – midnight); and A-List DJ sets and dancing until midnight.
8:30 PM SUPPORTER TICKET @ $150 each ($130 Tax-Deductible) (Limited Number of Tickets)
Available Beginning September 15, 2009 Preview of Slash: Paper Under the Knife; view one-of-a-kind silent auction; enjoy cocktails, A-List DJ sets and dancing until midnight.
Young Associates at The Chelsea Art Museum
Posted by: artbenefits on: September 29, 2009
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Young Associates Fall Benefit Party
for the Chelsea Art Museum’s Rooftop
with Celebrity Host Catherine Malandrino
October 1, 2009 from 8pm to midnight
Silent Auction: from 8pm to 10:45pm (LAST BID at 10:45pm)
click here to see artworks and press release
Guggenheim Gala
Posted by: artbenefits on: September 16, 2009
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Gala Evening Includes Premiere of Levels of Nothingness, a Commissioned Performance Installation Inspired by Kandinsky’s Yellow Sound by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer Featuring Isabella Rossellini
What: 2009 Guggenheim International Gala Benefit
When: Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Time: 7 PM Cocktails
8 PM Performance
8:30 PM Dinner
10 PM Repeat Performance
Where: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum 1071 Fifth Avenue, New York
(NEW YORK, NY – August 24, 2009) – On Wednesday, September 16, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum will host the 2009 Guggenheim International Gala, its annual fundraising celebration, now in its fifth year. The Gala is chaired
by Richard Armstrong, Director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and Museum, Maria Baibakova, Isabella and Theodor Dalenson, Danielle Ganek, Art Garfunkel, Sarah Jessica Parker, Amy Phelan, and Jacqueline Sackler. Honorary chairs are Phyllis and William Mack and Jennifer and David Stockman. The Guggenheim will honor Deutsche Bank, its visionary partner, with a special tribute. A starred event among the full year of 50th anniversary programming, the 2009 Guggenheim International Gala will take place within the Guggenheim’s Frank Lloyd Wright-designed landmark on Fifth Avenue, where guests will enjoy a preview of the fullscale Kandinsky retrospective that opens to the public on September 18. In addition, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s new performance installation, Levels of
Nothingness, commissioned and produced by Works & Process at the Guggenheim, will premiere with two 25-minute performances at 8 pm and 10 pm.
In-kind support for the Gala is provided by Swarovski.
Levels of Nothingness is made possible by Deutsche Bank and Colección/Fundación Jumex.
The evening will begin with cock
tails at 7 pm in the rotunda and in the newly opened Cafe 3 space overlooking Central Park. The spiraling ramps will offer a preview of Kandinsky, a major exhibition of almost 100 paintings and more than 60 works on paper by Vasily Kandinsky, a pioneer of abstraction and an artist whose work was collected in depth by Solom
on R. Guggenheim. Music will be provided by Dustin O’Halloran, whose piano compositions were featured in Sofia Coppola’s film Marie Antoinette, along with a string quartet. Peter Hoffman of the SoHo restaurant Savoy, long recognized for its commitment to sustainable agriculture, is preparing a special menu showcasing seasonal organic ingredients from local farms. A pristine white decor with Swarovski crystals designed by Michael Gabellini of Gabellini Sheppard Associates will provide a backdrop for the bright spectrum of the Kandinsky canvases in the exhibition and the guests’ suggested attire, black tie with colors inspired by Kandinsky.
Before or after dinner, guests are invited to the museum’s Peter B. Lewis Theater for the debut of Levels of Nothingness. Inspired by Kandinsky’s The Yellow Sound (1912), Mexicanborn Rafael Lozano-Hemmer creates an installation where colors derive automatically from the human voice to generate an interactive light performance. Isabella Rossellini will read seminal philosophical texts on skepticism, color, and perception, while her voice is analyzed by computers that control a full rig of rock-and-roll concert lighting. The audience will have the opportunity to test the color-generating microphone as well.
As a gift from the Guggenheim to its friends and supporters, a limited-edition art object, a miniature organ emitting both music and light by Peter Coffin entitled Clavier à lumières, will be given to all guests. Complementing Kandinsky’s explorations of synaesthesia, the New York-based Coffin’s work reimagines the notion of a unified sensory experience, operating as an instrument of integrated color, light, and sound.
The annual Gala was the recent recipient of three awards at the 2008 New York Event Style Awards for its transformation of a raw parking garage for the 2007 Guggenheim International Gala. Funds raised from the 2009 Gala will support the exhibitions and programming at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.
To purchase tickets or for ticketing information, please contact Bronwyn Keenan at bkeenan@guggenheim.org or 212 423 3539.
About the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation
Founded in 1937, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation is dedicated to promoting the understanding and appreciation of art, primarily of the modern and contemporary periods, through exhibitions, education programs, research init
iatives, and publications. Currently the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation owns and operates the Guggenheim Museum on Fifth Avenue in New York and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection on the Grand Canal in Venice, and also provides programming and management for two other museums in Europe that bear its name: the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and the Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin. In 2012- 2013 the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, a 452,000 square foot museum of modern and contemporary art designed by architect Frank Gehry, is scheduled to open.
#1129
August 24, 2009
FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION CONTACT:
Betsy Ennis, Director, Media and Public Relations
Lauren Van Natten, Senior Publicist
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
212 423 3840
E-mail: pressoffice@guggenheim.org
Marisa Wayne
Rubenstein Communications, Associate Vice President
212 843 9216
E-mail: mwayne@rubenstein.com
Detroit citizens support art!
Posted by: artbenefits on: August 24, 2009
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I was completely blown away by the recent news that the citizens of Southeast Michigan (home to Detroit), managed to raise $3.75 million in less than 12 hours…
Detroit, Michigan
Even in the face of the city’s deep recession woes caused by the decline of the automotive industry, Detroit’s citizens are still passionately committed to giving back to their community.
In just 11 hours, donors raised $3.75 million in support of 75 arts and cultural organizations in southeast Michigan, through the Community Foundation Challenge – Arts & Culture.
The challenge, which was sponsored by the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan and the Cultural Alliance of Southeastern Michigan, featured matching contributions for all donations up to the $1 million mark, provided by the Community Foundation.
…
Detroit is home to many greats organizations, including the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit. Here is a list of art museums and galleries in Detroit, Michigan.
Forum in D.C.
Posted by: artbenefits on: August 18, 2009
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Kick off Forum’s 2009-10 season with cocktails, heavy hors d’oeuvres, a silent auction, and more...
Emceed by Wendy Rieger, NBC Washington Channel 4
Featuring a special introduction to Forum’s fall production of Angels in America
and an “After the Garden performance by Eddie Beale,” with Jeffrey Johnson as Little Edie Beale
DATE: Thursday, September 24, 2009
TIME: 7:00 pm to 10:30 pm
LOCATION: Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams*
1526 14th Street, NW, Washington, DC 200036
DRESS: Creative (feel free to pull out your Roaring ’20s best: mobsters, flappers, hobos, top hats & tails, zoot suits, or glamour girls)
TICKETS: $125 each–or, buy your own special 10-seat VIP table for $1,000 and be given a secret password! To purchase, click here or call (800) 494-TIXS.
* Speakeasy attendees have an exclusive shopportunity to get 10% off everything in the store!
John Ostrander – comic
Posted by: artbenefits on: August 10, 2009
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I just read an article about a benefit that happened in Chicago over the weekend -
From the Chicago Tribune:
“Earlier this summer, writer John Ostrander faced a problem that confronts thousands of ailing Americans each year: With hospital bills far outpacing his insurance coverage, how could he save his physical health with his eyesight threatened by chronic glaucoma?
Luckily for the 60-year-old Chicago native, his much-admired talent is reaping benefits his insurance could never provide. Although his career began in Chicago theater, Ostrander flourished writing comic books, such as ” Star Wars: Legacy and GrimJack.” His colleagues have now become real-life heroes, swooping in to sponsor a benefit Saturday, part of this weekend’s Chicago Comic-Con at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont.
Spearheading the event is lifelong friend Mike Gold, president and editor in chief of Com
icMix, an Internet-based comics company. The two met at an Organic Theater party in 1971. After Gold began his career as a comics editor, he eagerly hired Ostrander. “He was an accomplished playwright at that time,” says Gold, so he was sure his friend could “think visually.”…..”
