In response to the ongoing coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, Artsy is donating 10% of its proceeds from a new series of four Give Back "collections" throughout April to the World Health Organisation's Covid-19 Solidarity Response Fund as part of its #ArtKeepsGoing campaign.
Give Back launches today and the collections are grouped under four themes: works from blue chip gallery shows; prints priced under $20,000 by well-known artists; works by established artists whose museum shows have been cancelled due to the virus and an early career artists collection for emerging names. The latter includes prints, paintings, sculptures and other works by younger artists whose shows have been cancelled or postponed due to Covid-19, such as the abstract painter Reginald Sylvester II, who is represented by James Fuentes; sculptor Katie Stout, represented by Nina Johnson; and Eric Shaw, whose current show up at The Hole closed due to the crisis. The donation from each sale will be fully subsidised by Artsy and will not reduce the proceeds to partners.
“I’m proud of the Artsy team for their exhaustive efforts to support our partners and their artists through this crisis,” says the firm’s chief executive, Mike Steib. “We will do everything we can to ensure that art keeps going through this crisis and is available to everyone in the world.”
Works are available through Artsy's "Buy Now" or "Make Offer" feature, with starting bids ranging from a $1,400 sculpture by the Filipino artist Miguel Aquilizan, offered by the Tokyo-based Art Front Gallery, to a $100,000 gelatin silver print of Hiroshi Sugimoto's In Praise of Shadows 980728 (1998) from San Francisco’s Fraenkel Gallery.
As part of its #ArtKeepsGoing initiative, Artsy has also launched separate collections of works dedicated to non-profit institutions and others focused on galleries and artists that were due to show at art fairs that have been cancelled or postponed, such as ArteBA. It will also host some MFA graduate shows.