It might be hard to top last year’s Contemporary Art Society (CAS) crowdfunding campaign, which raised £203,000 through the sale of limited-edition facemasks by artists such as David Shrigley and enabled museums across the UK to buy 106 works. But this year’s crowdfunder looks just as appealing with four versions of a “Choose Art” T-shirt devised by the fashion designer Katharine Hamnett.
This 1980s throwback—Hamnett’s “Choose Life” shirts made waves in the age of Margaret Thatcher—has been endorsed by the superstar singers Sam Smith and Skunk Anansie who have been modelling the new T-shirt all over Instagram. The artist Jeremy Deller was even snapped having his vaccine jab in the arty new top. “Money raised will be spent purchasing works by British-based artists, providing financial support to artists, technicians and art handlers, many of whom work on a freelance basis and have seen their income streams decimated over the past year,” says a spokesperson for the Contemporary Art Society. So choose a T-shirt.