Thank You, Dan Colen for the Crack Pipe, Aurel’s Unrequited Love, and Patti… for Haiti

PHOTO: BY GAVIN DOYLE: (HIS NOTE  ON THE PHOTO) The last one is my favorite piece of the night Aurel Schmidt’s “Two Things I wish I wasn’t thinking about right now.” Ironically, the boy in the photo is Lucien Marc Smith her ex-boyfriend and former apprentice to Dan Colen. xx Gavin

Money talks. Bullshit walks.

Last night, at the Tools for Thought auction for Haiti, money talked, $150,000 estimate.

Of course, some high end artists needed to stash their egos away, since  hunters, dealers included,  sniffed like dogs for bargains. Art pieces and work tools from  blue chip artists like Jeff Koons to talented indie newcomers like  Justine Fisher– whose just finished wall sized painting “Paloma in Thought” (still wet upon arrival) served as stage background for singer Patti Smith– all brought in lots of green for Partners in Health for Haiti. Like that commercial that reduces everything down to a dollar value, here it goes:

Door tickets at $100 each: $20,000

Art sold: $105,000

Pre purchased tickets: $25,000 plus

First, a special thanks to all the wonderful artists who contributed, especially Michael Stipe whose beautiful bronze camera sculptures got $2500 each; to Dan Colen for a remarkably dainty glass crack pipe with blossoms (sold: $1500); and to photographer Ellen Von Unwerth, whose photograph of a masked naked vixen (pictured) below (sold: $1300) that had one socialite practically holding her boyfriend hostage at a wall. “You’re not leaving this spot until you buy me that photo.” (Well, it went something like that!)

Special mention: Alex Katz’s paintbrush, still filled with dry white paint. **While most contributers gave full works, Katz fulfilled the “tools” idea, the original concept behind the auction where each artist would contribute a tool offered in the Duchamp idea of the found object as art.  Price: $2,000.

End assessment: the help that goes to Haiti: PRICELESS.

Kudos to Diana Campbell and Julie Ragolia for harnessing a great host committee and all the artists brought in by friends and friends of friends… **WANT TO CONTRIBUTE SOMETHING TO HELP, EVEN $20? CLICK: PARTNERSINHEALTH

Patti Smith holds out the microphone to the crowd at Sotheby’s during “Because the Night…”

PHOTO: GAVIN DOYLE

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