Barrons: 24 Artists Donate Works to Raise Funds for the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art

By Fang Block, April 22, 2021 6:08 pm ET

Ghost Vines (Anthem) #2 by Teresita Fernandez

Courtesy of the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong, Seoul and London

Twenty-four artists have donated their works to raise funds for the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA), which is holding a sale online at Artsy from now until April 30 instead of its annual in-person benefit gala.

The 19 works and five limited-edition multiples have an estimated total of US$400,000, proceeds of which which will help establish the Joe Thompson “Yes” Fund to support artists and art-making in all forms.

Thompson, founding director of the museum, is departing after a 33-year tenure.

Sitting on a historic, 16-acre site in North Adams, Mass., the museum boasts vast galleries and a collection of indoor and outdoor performing arts venues for all forms of art, including music, sculpture, dance, film, painting, photography, theater, and more. 

Most of the 24 works donated for this auction have direct links to the museum, being created, exhibited, or workshopped at the museum. Among the participating artists are David Byrne, Teresita Fernández, Jenny Holzer, William Kentridge, and Xu Bing.

William Kentridge's Emmy Hemmings

MASS MoCA

Fernández’s painting, Ghost Vines (Anthem) #2, 2008, depicts a series of variegated green dots across the page, as if the vine conforms to the desired pattern. The painting, framed in white wood, relates to a series of “Ghost Vine” sculptures that the New York-based artist has executed in highly polished metals. It carries an estimated value of US$25,000. Fernández had her exhibition “As Above So Below” at MASS MoCA in 2014.

The auction also includes William Kentridge’s Emmy Hemmings, one of the cardboard silhouettes that was featured in the artist’s performance The Head & The Load, which was workshopped at MASS MoCA in 2018 before being presented at the Tate in London and the Armory Show in New York. The work has an estimated value of US$20,000.

Prices of other works offered range from US$5,000 to US$135,000. 

Artsy is a New York-based online art brokerage, hosting websites for galleries as well as selling art for them.

Article published on www.barrons.com.