Anish Kapoor, Cornelia Parker and Mona Hatoum are among the artists who have donated works to the latest online auction in aid of Freedom from Torture, a charity which provides psychological therapy and counselling for survivors at five centres across the UK.
The online auction runs until 6 November, inviting minimum bids on more than 50 works. Yinka Shonibare’s relief print Aristocrat I (2018) has a guide price of £5,000 while Pablo Bronstein’s etching (Design for a Cake Basket and Two Muffineers En-Suite 1, 2017) has a guide price of £3,500.
A separate live auction for the charity to be held at Sotheby’s London on 6 November includes works by Julian Opie, Maggi Hambling and Grayson Perry who has produced a ceramic piece especially for the event (Product of the Unconscious, estimate £80,000 to £95,000).
Ai Weiwei has consigned four of his glass taxi window cranks to the live sale (estimate £10,000 to £15,000). Explaining the work, an auction statement says: “In an attempt to prevent passengers from throwing incendiary pamphlets out the windows of taxis while passing Tiananmen Square during the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China [in 2012], the Beijing government ordered all window cranks to be removed from taxis… this work demonstrates the absurdity of implementing restrictions on a person's physical presence for the benefit of those in power in a digital, social media-driven age.”
All of the sale proceeds from both auctions go towards the charity (since its inception in 2003, the biennial event has raised more than £1m). Freedom from Torture says in a statement: “In 2021 our pioneering rehabilitation services supported 709 survivors from almost 50 countries, including Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Iran.”