Tools For Thought: The Art World Comes Together for Haiti

From Jeff Koons to Terence Koh, from Michael Stipe to Patti Smith — a diverse group of artists (and galleries) join forces to raise money for Partners in Health.

If the crisis in Haiti has proven anything, it's that the American spirit of caring can bring together disparate and even competing groups in support of a common cause.

Musicians of every genre, from metal to hip-hop to easy listening, joined forces to perform on the Hope for Haiti Now telethon, and to sing on a new version of We Are The World. Competitors in the fashion world joined together for Donna Karan's Haiti Hope Help & Relief benefit, as well as Naomi Campbell's Fashion For Relief efforts. Opposing political forces even reached across the proverbial aisle to form the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund.

Now, the art world is sharing in that very same spirit by coming together in New York City for Tools For Thought: Rebuild Haiti, a major art auction and fundraising event that is all but erasing the walls of art-world competition in order to raise funds for Partners in Health, an organization working directly on the ground in the earthquake-ravaged country.

Curators from PS1, the Studio Museum, the Warhol Museum, Neue Galerie and more are joining with young gallerists from Gagosian Gallery, Marlborough Gallery, Robert Miller Gallery and James Cohan Gallery, to name but a few, for the auction, which will take place in Manhattan on March 15 at a star-studded event — complete with a concert by the legendary Patti Smith. (*Editor's Note: Tonic will serve as a media partner for the event, and bring continuous coverage leading up to and through the big night.)

"It really is an art-world wide effort, from the artists to the museums to the galleries and the auction houses," notes Tools For Thought co-founder Diana Campbell.

More than 90 artists have donated works to the auction, which is expected to kick off with silent bidding open to the public via the Web in advance of the March 15 event. Working from the starting point of a "ready-made" theme — the term coined by French artist Marchel Duchamp for selecting mass-produced and at-hand objects as art — artists as diverse as Terence Koh (who created the ready-made white hammer, left), Michael Stipe (of R.E.M. fame) and Jeff Koons jumped at the chance to get involved and share works for the cause.

"We hadn't envisioned so many people wanting to get involved," admits Tools For Thought's other co-founder, Julie Ragolia. "It was a lot smaller in our head when we came up with it."

In fact, in early February, Ragolia and Campbell were on their way to putting the entire auction on this very evening — Feb. 22 — but so many artists and galleries offered to get involved, they pushed the date back to March 15 to allow enough time to pull it all together.

Instead, they're holding a "thank you" party and intimate rally for the cause this evening at Manhattan's Collective Hardware. "We were so impressed with how the art world came together, we wanted to celebrate the people who've gotten involved," says Campbell. "So tonight is a little pre-buzz for auction night."

It's also a chance to start putting the spotlight where the artists and curators want it to shine: on Partners In Health.

There is no need to wait for the auction to get started and make a donation to the organization: "People are always able to donate to Partners in Health — and part of what we're doing is to raise awareness that you can donate at any time," Campbell says.

Ragolia points to PIH's transparency when it comes to finances as one of the primary reasons they wanted to work with the organization: Anyone who makes a donation, or places a bid, can rest assured that their dollars will be spent on the ground, and not in overhead.

While weeks have passed, and a lot of money has been raised for relief in Haiti, rebuilding the country "is going to take several years," Ragolia notes. And this is the art world's way of getting involved, as a first step in what will be many years of striving to help Haiti not only to recover, but to thrive. "Despite the tragedy, people are paying a lot more attention to Haiti — so through this rebuilding process, hopefully we can make the country better than it was before."

Several pieces in the auction will come from Haitian artists. And the art that's sure to rise up from the tragedy in Haiti will someday move the world. For now, though, the focus needs to be on getting the Haitian people back on their feet — and that's exactly what Tools For Thought: Rebuild Haiti aims to do by supporting Partners in Health.

"If you don't have your basic needs taken care of," Ragolia says, "you can't start making art."

So now is the time for the art world to make a difference.

Photo and logo courtesy Tools For Thought.