A Look At The Art From Christie's Auction That Raised Nearly $14 Million For Haiti.

A record-breaking charity art auction was held Thursday, September 22nd at the David Zwirner Gallery and organized with actor Ben Stiller's Stiller foundation. The Christie's fundraising auction featured works by such well-known contemporary artists as Jeff Koons, Jasper Johns, Ed Ruscha, James Rosenquist, Cindy Sherman, Elizabeth Peyton and Chuck Close to raise money for relief efforts in Haiti.


above: actor Ben Stiller and gallerist David Zwirner with children from Haiti

The Christie's auction raised $13.7 million (their highest ever for a charity) and set records for works by Raymond Pettibon, Glenn Ligon, Adel Abdessemed and Nate Lowman (whose pieces are all shown in this post). Many of the pieces were created for the auction, but not all.


above: Raymond Pettibon's No Title (but the sand...)

The top selling painting was Marlene Dumas’ 2010 “My mother before she became my mother” which went for $2 million:

above left: full painting; above right, detail of painting

"Deal - No Deal" by Luc Tuymans, 2011, fetched $1.15 million:

above left: full painting; above right, detail of painting

Actress Jennifer Aniston plopped down $450,000 for this painting, Glen Ligon's Stranger #44 valued at just $150,000 to $200,000- making it a generous donation and a record breaking sale for the artist:

above left: full painting; above right, detail of painting

Nate Lowman's Birthday cake painting #2 (a record-breaking sale for the artist):


Jasper Johns, Untitled, 2009:


Jeff Koons, Bikini (Desert), 2001-2011:

above top: full painting; below left: detail of painting; below right: in situ

Chuck Close, Self Portrait, 2007:

above left: full painting; above right, detail of painting

Urs Fischer, Tomorrow, 2010:

above left: full artwork; above right, detail of artwork

Ed Ruscha, Pick, Pan, Shovel #7, 1979:


Elizabeth Peyton's Jay-Z, Glastonbury, 2008:

above left: full drawing; above right, framed and in situ

Adel Abdessemed's Mappemonde-Olive, 2011:

above left: full artwork; above right, detail of artwork

James Rosenquist's The Richest Person Gazing at the Universe Through a Hubcap, 2011:


Neo Rauch, Chor, 2011:

above left: full painting; above right, detail of painting

Cindy Sherman, Untitled:

above left: full photograph; above right, detail of photograph

Rudolph Stingel, Untitled, 2008:

above left: full painting; above right, detail of painting



above: the auction catalog cover

Christie's said the sale was its highest total for a charity auction. Art dealer David Zwirner, who curated the sale, described it as "an amazing evening." He said of the result, "We are overwhelmed by the support."

Images of some of the works as displayed in the gallery:





The Artists include:
Adel Abdessemed, Francis Alÿs, Mamma Andersson, Louise Bourgeois, Cecily Brown, Chuck Close, Marlene Dumas, Urs Fischer, Dan Flavin, Jasper Johns, Martin Kippenberger, Jeff Koons, Glenn Ligon, Paul McCarthy, Chris Ofili, Raymond Pettibon, Elizabeth Peyton, Neo Rauch, James Rosenquist, Ed Ruscha, Cindy Sherman, Rudolf Stingel, Luc Tuymans, Kelley Walker,and Zhang Huan.

To see all of the pieces in the auction, visit Artists For Haiti


Artists for Haiti, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) charitable organization, joins in the much needed humanitarian effort to raise significant funds for children’s education and health programs. 100% of the proceeds from this sale will go directly to support nonprofits and NGOs that are already performing extraordinary work on the ground in Haiti, including: Architecture for Humanity, Artists for Peace and Justice, Ciné Institute, Grameen Creative Lab, J/P HRO, Partners In Health, and The Stiller Foundation, among others.

images courtesy of Christie's, Artists for Haiti and Artnet

Mary Ellen Croteau Creates a Self Portrait with Thousands of Plastic Bottle Caps.

above: detail from CLOSE, a self-portrait of Mary Ellen Croteau made with plastic bottle caps

There seem to be an endless number of talented artists creating portraits using assemblages of unexpected items; licorice, junk, toys, pills, pencils, diamonds, pushpins and more. I have already featured nine different artists who create portraits from such items unusual work on this blog and now I'm introducing you to a tenth, Mary Ellen Croteau.

(click on each image below to see posts on each of these nine artists):



above: Top row. l to r: Bernard Pras' portrait of Bruce Lee, Zac Freeman's portrait of Garrett, Scott Blake's self portrait. Middle row, l to r: Jason Mercer's portrait of Kim Kardashian made with licorice vines, Christian Faur's portrait made of crayons, a diamond and sapphire gemstone portrait of Marilyn Monroe. Bottom row, l to r: Federico Uribe's portrait of a tiger made with pencils, Charles Manson made of rubik's cubes, and Eric Daigh's pushpin portrait.

Mary Ellen Croteau had been working with plastic bottle caps to create columnar sculptures, but while crafting these, she became compelled to create a large self-portrait with them.



She describes this inspiration below:
"Plastic bottle caps - like bags, a plastic product that can’t be/ isn’t recycled. I conceived of an “endless column” of these caps, after Constantin Brancussi’s (sic) iconic modernist sculpture. One became two, and two became many...:



...While making these columns, I noticed the smaller caps tended to nest inside one another, and the color combinations reminded me of Chuck Close’s painted portraits. So I got sidetracked and started on a large self-portrait made entirely of bottle caps. The piece measures 8 feet by 7 feet. No paint is used, except to delineate a few shadows where white board was showing through. In a few cases, the caps are trimmed in order to fit a tight space." - Mary Ellen Croteau



close-up of the nose:

close up of eye in progress:


The final assembled piece displayed for Art on Armitage:


Mary Ellen Croteau is an artist whose work directly addresses the absurdities of social norms, and lays bare the underlying bias and sexist assumptions on which our culture is constructed.
She lives and works in Chicago, IL.

See more of her unusual art here.

a shout out to This Is Colossal for bringing Mary's work to my attention