We have only got each other. What could be more true? At a time when Londoners from all walks of life are struggling due to the impact of coronavirus, the importance of love and care from others has been magnified tenfold.
The phrase comes from a work made by the artist Bob & Roberta Smith one of several fantastic lots in an auction kicking off today at sothebys.com to support The Independents Help the Hungry appeal.
Over the past four months we have raised more than £7.5m for food redistribution charity The Felix Project a cause for which we have pledged to raise £10m as well as to open central Londons largest community kitchen.
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The auction is an opportunity to get your hands on works by some amazing artists more likely to be seen on the walls of a museum than your living room. They can also be viewed at Sothebys, 34-35 New Bond Street.
For more details on the auction at Sothebys click here.
Ai Weiwei
Small Plate with Flowers, 2014
Ceramic has been a recurring motif for Ai Weiwei (a 1995 series of photographs showed him dropping a Han dynasty urn) and he has often used porcelain, for centuries a secret formula known only to Chinese makers. Flowers, too, are significant when his passport was taken Ai put a bunch of fresh flowers in a bike basket outside his studio every day until he was able to travel freely. This small plate holds a great deal of meaning.
Estimate: £18,000-£22,000
Yinka Shonibare Unstructured Icons: Aristocrat I
Yinka Shonibare
Unstructured Icons: Aristocrat I, 2018
Yinka Shonibare deconstructions of icons of western power couldnt be more current. This elegant woodcut print, using vivid Batik textiles, transposes animal masks from Mali onto the faces of English aristocratic figures enriched off the back of colonisation and slavery. The patterns of textiles overlay the repeating patterns of power and show how historys long fingers reach into our present.
Estimate: £2,500-£3,500
Bob & Roberta Smith We Have Only Got Each Other, 2019
Bob & Roberta Smith
We Have Only Got Each Other, 2019
Unfailingly optimistic, Bob & Roberta Smiths work is always a call to care. Hes known for his colourful and impassioned but peaceful slogans (Make Art Not War seems like a good standard to live by) and his advocacy of art as a tool for education and understanding. We Have Only Got Each Other quotes his late mother, the artist Deirdre Borlase, spoken in response to the divisions revealed during the Brexit campaign but its universal meaning is clear.
Estimate: £3,000-£5,000
Tracey Emin Good Tears, 2013
Tracey Emin
Good tears, 2013
Im a sucker for a good drawing Ive always felt that even at 500-odd years distance, its the form that brings you closest to an artist; the sweep of a human hand that has just left the page. After many years of deeply mining her own emotions and experiences in her work, Emin is an artist at the height of her powers. Her raw, almost agonisingly expressive draughtsmanship gets me every time and this little sketch nails the feeling of having a really good cry.
Estimate: £12,000-£18,000
Anish Kapoor Omo, 2018; Untitled, 2015; Untitled, 2015
Anish Kapoor
Omo, 2018; Untitled, 2015; Untitled, 2015
These three etchings a supremely generous donation from Anish Kapoor, more usually known for the interactive theatricality of his large-scale sculptures exude a quiet drama. Their simplicity belies their seductiveness; velvety and intense, they draw you in, never quite revealing their secrets.
Estimate: £5,000-£7,000
Mark Wallinger
Ghost, 2001
A chance to nab an otherwise sold-out edition (produced for Wallingers Whitechapel Gallery show in 2001): Wallingers screenprint was created by producing a black-and-white negative of George Stubbss painting Whistlejacket, with the addition of a narwhals horn, resulting in an image that reminds me of those 19th century fakery-photos of fairies. Wallinger was inspired by X-rays of Old Masters, which he thinks of as akin to spirit photography: The revelation of the invisible, supernatural life of a painting.
Estimate: £3,000-£5,000
Bridget Riley
Untitled (Elongated Triangles 2), 1971
A reminder of the pre-lockdown era, when we were able to wander the Hayward Gallery and bathe in the sea of pulsating colour that was Rileys superb exhibition. This screenprint is from a series that vibrates right off the paper (Tate owns an edition of Elongated Triangles 5, so youll be in good company if you get your hands on this one).
Estimate: £4,000-£6,000
Michael Craig-Martin Mies van der Rohe Chair, Saarinen Chair, 2019
Michael Craig-Martin
Mies van der Rohe Chair, Saarinen Chair, 2019
The essence of things is what Michael Craig-Martin seeks in his work, and colour is part of seducing the viewer to really look at the objects that make up our world. These sculptural reliefs in polished steel come from a series that pays homage to designers and architects whose vision has shaped what we think of as modern. You cant sit on them, but look at them. Arent they beautiful?
Estimate: £10,000-£15,000
For more details on the auction at Sothebys click here.
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