Visionaries Like Jeff Koons, Michael Stipe and Patti Smith Participate in an Auction to Help Rebuild Haiti

Silent bidding begins tomorrow on the web for New York City's landmark Tools for Thought: Rebuild Haiti Art Auction to raise money for Partners in Health, which has been working to help the impoverished nation for more than 20 years.

Art lovers and those who want to help rebuild Haiti can visit Our Tools For Thought to bid on works donated by more than 100 artists. Absentee bids for the silent auction will be accepted until March 14 at 7 p.m.

Bidding will resume on March 15 from 7 to 9 p.m. at Sotheby's in Manhattan, when more than 200 art world luminaries will come together for the Tools for Thought star-studded auction and fundraiser. The event also features a performance by the legendary Patti Smith. Alexandra Richards (Keith's daughter) will be DJing. (*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. For more info, please check out Tonic's story on Tools for Thought: Rebuild Haiti.)

"It's exciting and humbling that in just three weeks, we brought together more than 200 of the most powerful and passionate forces in the art world," Tools for Thought co-founder Diana Campbell tells Tonic. "They've all really put their hearts into this. People are using their God-given talents and resources and giving up their time to help a cause they all care about. It is incredibly rewarding to unpack donations from around the world, seeing how the artists created amazing art works to help an important cause. You can see the passion for the cause in every donation."

Huge names in the art world including photographer Marilyn Minter, who is donating a skateboard deck she painted; Cai Guo-Qiang, famous for his gunpowder drawings and firework installations which have been seen everywhere from the Metropolitan Museum of Art to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, is donating an original gunpowder drawing on a catalog from his Guggenheim exhibition "I Want to Believe";  and Roxy Paine, whose sculpture Maelstrom was exhibit on the Roof Garden of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City this summer all jumped at the chance to get involved. In addition, curators from PS1, the Studio Museum, the Warhol Museum, Neue Galerie and young gallerists from Gagosian Gallery, Marlborough Gallery and Robert Miller Gallery have stepped forward for the fundraiser.

"We've heard from people all over the world who want to help Haiti," says Campbell. "In the wake of a devastating earthquake, Haiti and its people need more help than ever before."

Artists don't necessarily have to donate works they've done. Playing off of French artist Marcel Duchamp's "ready-made" theme — a term he coined for selecting mass-produced and at-hand objects as art — Tools for Thought has invited artists to also donate things they have at hand: signed tools from the studio or signed personal objects "with the idea that the thing most ready at hand is our generosity and good will to help those suffering in Haiti," says co-founder Julie Ragolia.

Tools for Thought wanted to work with Partners in Health because funds raised will be spent on the ground, and not in overhead, she says. "It's a great organization that's doing great things," she says. "And the art world is coming together to help them do that."

To purchase tickets to the event at Sotheby's on March 15, click here.

Artwork courtesy Steven Sebring (who is a member of Tonic's Board of Creators) and Patti Smith.

Both pieces are available through the Tools for Thought: Rebuild Haiti auction:

Steven SebringFLAG, 1998Archival pigment print25 x 20 inchesReserve price: $2,000

Patti SmithMY HORSE IN NAMIBIA, 2010Gelatin silver print with unique poetry11 x 14 inchesReserve price: $2,000