Art Wednesday

(EDIT: We’ve moved this piece on Powder Train to the fore again, because it finally opens to the public this week. There are also two new, unseen prints – of Katharine Hamnett wearing a hood she designed for Kids Company, and of Thekla Reuten – included in the public show.)

Charity art auctions seem to be a trend, and frankly, who are we to be churlish about it? Art is, after all, somewhat under threat at the moment, so it’s useful to remind ourselves that it does have practical applications; furthermore, if we can justify spending the evening at a party with the qualifier ‘it was for charity’, then we’re happy (you can’t write us off as not being philanthropic just because we like a tipple, you know, as we happen to be high-functioning members of society for at least 25% of the week. We swear on Nicholas Serota’s bank balance.)

Powder Train is the latest show to grace the crypt of Spitalfields Church, and opened last night with a charity auction. The artists, Karl Anthoney and Alisa Connan, had produced a series of fifteen paintings, depicting figures such as Sue Tilley and performance artist Theo Adams, as well as a number of limited-edition prints, some of which are still available via the website at a cost of £35. We won’t bang on about it when there’s a perfectly good press release to include here, but we will say this; we think the prints are rather fetching, and if you’ve the money to spare, what better way to help a worthy cause?

Here’s the press release, and that:

10 months after their initial meeting, Karl Anthoney and Alisa Connan‘s debut show & charity auction launched last night in grand style.  Reaching the venue’s capacity from the  get-go,  the crowd was a mixture of everyone from serious art collectors to press, celebrities & über-cool shoreditch crowd.  They drank and partied the night away with Mixology drinks in hand and Princess Julia‘s  sounds from the DJ booth.   Singer-songwriter Gabriella Cilmi fell in love with painting and short film (directed by Alisa Connan) of Theo Adams but didn’t get in quick enough before it was snapped up by another buyer.  Determined not to walk away empty handed, she bought one of the four  limited edition prints that were being sold throughout the night.

After the crowd was settled in for the evening Sotherby’s art advisor Angelica Romanazzi introduced Theo Adams to kick off the auction.  The auction reached fever pitch when a last minute phone bidder was introduced into the mix, reaching a final sale price of £1,700.  It’s a wee way from the last painting of Sue Tillley, by Lucian Freud which reached the record price for a living artist of an impressive  £17 million,  but that didn’t stop the the Macmillan Cancer Support volunteers along with the rest of the crown cheering in unison once the final sale was agreed.

James Scudamore and one of Jason Issacs‘ paintings sold before the doors opened.  Sara Stockbridge proudly posed with her daughter Lelu in front of their 4 screenprints, later confiding that she hopes to buy the one of Lelu.  Remi Nicole tried to figure out a way to buy a copy of her own edition print without anyone noticing,  Benedict Wong carefully surveyed the walls for his favourite piece and Sue Tilley pulled some moves in front of her painting while various photographers snapped away, later signing copies of her edition print that were then sold for premium rates with all proceeds going to the artist’s charity Macmillan Cancer Support.

Limited edition screenprints of Sue Tilley, Siobhan Donaghy, Olga Kurylenko & Remi Nicole are available for sale for £35 at www.antandco.com, and in the Art Wednesday store here. All of the exhibition’s proceeds go to the charity KidsCompany.

Ant And Co (Click Here)