In this age of a seemingly recession-proof art market, where auctions are a (hundred-billion) dime(s) a dozen, it is refreshing to see the (RED) Auction come along. Scheduled for Thursday, February 14, 2008, at Sotheby's New York location, the (RED) Auction has been organized with some distinctly humanitarian and newsworthy twists. So what, I hear you say, are the twisty parts? Well:

• (RED) is a philanthropic business model--an economic initiative, if you will--created by U2 front man Bono and Kennedy cousin Bobby Shriver. In a nutshell, whenever a consumer buys a product (say, an iPod) bearing the (RED) label, the manufacturer donates a percentage of the transaction towards a fund that buys the two pills per day necessary to keep African women and children infected with HIV/AIDS alive.



• Bono, who obviously is not hesitant about using his celebrity powers for Good, more or less strong-armed artist Damien Hirst into using his celebrity powers for Good when the two International superstars met up while on vacation in France. End result: Hirst found himself sending handwritten letters to 100 or so top Contemporary artists, asking for donations of work to be auctioned with all proceeds going towards the Global Fund that (RED) supports.



• Over 60 artists willingly complied. And these are names we've all heard: Damien Hirst, himself, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Chuck Close, Tracey Emin, Matthew Barney, Georg Baselitz, Rachel Whiteread, Anish Kapoor, Anselm Kiefer, Sir Peter Blake, Jeff Koons, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Takashi Murakami, Richard Prince, Ed Ruscha and Banksy (who thoughtfully donated a send-up of a Hirst piece), to name some.



• 81 of the 83 works at auction have come directly from the artists (the other two were donated by Willem de Kooning's daughter, Lisa), not from private collectors or galleries. And most were created specifically for the (RED) Auction.



• With the exception of some very modest administrative costs from Sotheby's and Gagosian Gallery's Chelsea branch (where the works will be on display through February 13), every penny of the estimated $21+ million raised will go directly to The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

Incidentally, the reason (RED) is written parenthetically is to denote an embrace. An auction to love, about love and on Valentine's Day, no less. I hope the bidding skyrockets.

Image credit:

Takashi Murakami (Japanese, b. 1962)
Red Flower Ball (3-D), 2007
Acrylic and platinum leaf on canvas mounted on board
Diameter: 59 in. (150 cm)
© 2007 Takashi Murakami