This past Saturday night at the Watermill Center, they staged “Paradiso,” the 17th Annual Watermill Summer Benefit, and raised close to $1.4 million for the Center’s year-round artist residency and education programs.
Highlights of the live auction included: an exclusive edition of Robert Wilson’s Winter Tales chair, which was sold twice by special guest auctioneer Sharon Stone. Stone also roused the audience into bidding twice on a private concert by Rufus Wainwright. Other successful live auction lots included a work by Donald Judd, Marina Abramovic and a large-scale work by Russian conceptualists Ilya and Emilia Kabakov. In the second half of the auction, Simon de Pury sold a barbed wire sculpture by French artist Philippe Perrin, a work by Anselm Kiefer, among others.
Robert Wilson, the impresario and creator of the Center is the closest thing to a cult that exists in the art world. Supported by a small army of wealthy art collectors, he took an old abandoned Western Union factory down a country road off Route 27 and transformed it into a sleek and provocative mecca of creativity famous all over the world. A great deal of the monies that helped in the transformation was raised over the years at these annual galas that take place on the last Saturday of July.
This year's silent auction included works by: David Adamo, Daniel Arsham, Michel Auder, Alice Aycock, Carol Bove, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Kathe Burkhart, Jeff Burton, Francesco Clemente, Michael Combs, Rosson Crow, Willem de Kooning, Martin Eder, Tim Eitel, Shepard Fairey, Tierney Gearon, Nan Goldin, Ann Hamilton, Anish Kapoor, Ragnar Kjartansson, Justine Kurland, Annie Leibovitz, Robert Mapplethorpe, Marilyn Minter, Sarah Morris, Youssef Nabil, Shirin Neshat, Dennis Oppenheim, Otto Piene, Kembra Pfahler, Lou Reed, Pipilotti Rist, Erik Schmidt, Taryn Simon, Kate Shepherd, David Benjamin Sherry, Erin Shirreff, Keith Sonnier, Ena Swansea, Spencer Tunick, and James Welling.
Also featured in the live auction: WM, Watermill Paradiso Scent designed exclusively for Watermill by International Flavors and Fragrances (IFF) senior designer Loc Dong. 100 bottles, uniquely designed by Watermill International Summer Program participants and artists, were available during the live auction and found enthusiastic buyers.
24 site specific Installations and performances interpreted the theme of paradise created by artists such as Genesis Breyer P-Orridge (US/UK), Yochai Matos (Israel), Janosch Parker (Germany), Al Stark (Australia), Andrey Bartenev (Russia), Marie Eve Nadeau (Canada), Sofia Medici (Argentina), Shige Moriya (Japan/ US), Ximena Garnica (Colombia/US), Sarawut Chutiwongpeti (Thailand), Carlos Soto (US), Charles Chemin (France), Rebecca Delange (Australia), Monira Al Qadiri (Kuwait), Abdulla Alawadi (Kuwait). All of these works were produced by the 70 artists and participants from over two dozen nations on site in the weeks leading up to the benefit and will be on view again to the community on August 8 for Watermill’s annual community day.
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