Going, Going, Gone: When the Art World Turned (RED)
As (RED) marks its 20th anniversary, co-founder Bobby Shriver recalls the February 2008 auction at Sotheby’s New York that proved the art market could be mobilized to save lives.
O n Valentine's Day 2008, Bono took to the rostrum at Sotheby’s New York to lead a chorus of the Beatles’ “All You Need Is Love”—a fitting overture for a sale benefiting (RED), the nonprofit initiative he co-founded with activist Bobby Shriver to support the Global Fund’s AIDS programs in Africa.
Staged two years after its launch, the auction carried (RED) from consumer partnerships to the top of the art market. Yet Shriver admits he had early doubts. “It seemed risky to expect enough big buyers to show up and spend big money for AIDS in Africa,” he recalls. He prayed the effort would raise $5 million; $7 million would count as victory.
At Bono’s request, Damien Hirst agreed to curate the sale, soliciting works from around 50 artists, many keyed to the color red. When Shriver saw Hirst’s own contributions, his reservations fell away. “I changed my prayers: ‘Please, God, let me win the lottery so I can buy one of these beauties.’”
With Larry Gagosian lending his gallery for the preview, the evening merged celebrity, market and cause. Among the buyers, model and activist Christy Turlington took home a Francesco Clemente watercolor for $170,500. “I’ve attended many ‘charity’ auctions before,” Shriver reflects. “Never one like this.”
A total of 82 works sold for $42.6 million—double the low estimate—with 17 artists setting new records. Sotheby’s waived its seller’s fees, while Hirst’s works accounted for more than a third of the total. “Here is the math,” says Shriver. “$42.6 million meant that almost 500,000 people stayed alive for a year—500,000 people contributing to their families and communities.”
Jenny Holzer supplied the sharpest reminder of what was at stake. Having used text as her medium since the 1970s, Holzer began making paintings in 2004 based on declassified government documents released under the Freedom of Information Act. “I live in the NSA’s collection,” she once told The New York Times. Her contribution, “Situation Room Note” (2007), reproduced a confidential 1987 White House memo on the AIDS epidemic. Her sole intervention was the addition of a Rothko-like red ground behind its bureaucratic language. Amid the spectacle, it returned attention to policy, power and the lives behind the numbers.
