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New York, NY-September 11, 2006-Aperture Foundation, a world-leading non-profit organization dedicated to promoting fine-art photography, will hold its Benefit & Auction on Monday, November 6, 2006 at Skylight, 275 Hudson Street, New York. This year's event will honor distinguished collectors and philanthropists Melva Bucksbaum and Raymond Learsy; internationally acclaimed artist Vik Muniz; and Yancey Richardson, whose prominent New York gallery has supported the work of legends as well as emerging artists.
The Benefit will be co-chaired by four great photography lovers and Aperture supporters: Joseph Baio, who serves on the Aperture board of directors; acclaimed designer and Aperture board member Todd Oldham; Brent Sikkema, who represents Vik Muniz among many other great artists; and artist Diane Tuft.
A cocktail reception and silent auction of classic and contemporary photographs (see list of artists attached) will take place from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., and a live auction will take place from 7:30 p.m. to 8:15 p.m. Rick Wester of Phillips de Pury & Co. will be the auctioneer. The evening will conclude with a sit-down dinner from 8:30 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. As in previous years, Aperture anticipates that the Benefit will attract a diverse crowd of art enthusiasts and collectors, from the international art, photography, publishing, design and business communities.
This year's Benefit marks Aperture's first anniversary in its new Chelsea headquarters, which has evolved into a wildly popular destination for art photography lovers featuring exhibitions, lectures, panel discussions, and book signings with some of the most important artists, critics, and curators in the field of photography today. Aperture's gallery opened in fall 2005 with a timely group show on contemporary Arab photography entitled Nazar: Photographs from the Arab World. Aperture recently concluded its first season in its new gallery with William Christenberry Photographs: 1961-2005, which opened concurrently with a multi-media survey of Christenberry's work at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C. in July 2006. The Aperture Gallery exhibitions have received stellar coverage in the New York Times, New Yorker, New York, Village Voice, NY1 News, CNN, Artforum, Black Book, Nylon, Time Out New York, among many other outlets.
Aperture Foundation's 2006 Benefit & Auction will raise funds to support the organization's acclaimed publications, exhibitions, and public programs, enabling the organization to continue to push the envelope by undertaking difficult but important projects. The over sixty works to be auctioned off at Skylight will be available for preview and bidding online beginning Wednesday, September 13, 2006, by visiting www.aperture.org/auction.
Tickets to the Benefit & Auction are available at the following tiers:
$10,000/Benefactor table
· Ten tickets to the cocktail reception and auction
· Prime seating for ten at the post-auction dinner
· Complimentary full-page ad in the Journal/Program*
· Benefactor table listing in the Journal/Program*
$5,000/Sponsor table
· Ten tickets to the cocktail reception and auction
· Preferential seating for ten at the post-auction dinner
· Complimentary half-page ad in the Journal/Program*
· Sponsor table listing in the Journal/Program*
$1,000/Benefactor ticket
· One ticket to the cocktail reception and auction
· One prime seat at the post-auction dinner
· Benefactor listing in the Journal/Program*
$500/Sponsor Ticket
· One ticket to the cocktail reception and auction
· One seat at the post-auction dinner
· Sponsor listing in the Journal/Program*
$250/Friend Ticket
· One ticket to the cocktail reception and auction
*Journal/Program deadline: Friday, October 13, 2006
Tickets can be purchased by calling Michiko Grasso, 212-946-7149, mgrasso@aperture.org.
Aperture Foundation-a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting fine art photography-was founded in 1952 by photographers Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange, Barbara Morgan, and Minor White; historian Beaumont Newhall; and writer/curator Nancy Newhall. With scant resources, these visionary artists created a new periodical, Aperture magazine, to serve photographers and photography enthusiasts worldwide. As the medium flourished, so too did the Aperture Foundation, expanding to include the subsequent publication of books (over four hundred to date); limited edition prints and portfolios; artist lectures and panel discussions; and a traveling exhibitions program that since its inception has presented over 100 exhibitions at major museums and cultural institutions throughout the United States and abroad.
Contact: Andrea Smith, Director of Communications, 212-946-7111; asmith@aperture.org
HONOREES
MELVA BUCKSBAUM AND RAYMOND LEARSY
Melva Bucksbaum and Raymond Learsy are devoted art patrons, philanthropists and collectors of contemporary art. Melva serves on the Board of American Friends of the Israel Museum, The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Drawing Center, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. She is also a member of the Visiting Committee to the Museums and the Committee of Collections of Harvard University; Christie's American Advisory Board; the International Council of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA); and The International Committee of the Tate Gallery in United Kingdom.
Since 1995, Melva has been actively managing the Martin Bucksbaum Family Foundation, and is currently a Director of the Robert I. Goldman Foundation. In 1996, Melva and her family endowed the Martin Bucksbaum Professorship in Urban Planning and Design, a chair position in the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. Melva also endowed the Martin Bucksbaum Distinguished Lecture Series at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. In 2000, Melva and her children inaugurated the Bucksbaum Award, which is given to an artist of distinction and promise selected from those artists represented in the Whitney Biennial. Each artist receives $100,000 and is honored with a show at the Whitney. In 2004, Melva and her daughter, Mary Bucksbaum Scanlan, gave two major outdoor installation sculptures by Joel Shapiro and Sally Pettus to the Des Moines Art Center, to be placed on loan to the City of Des Moines. Installation is set for 2006.
Raymond serves on the Board of the Whitney, and is a member of the International Council of the MoMA and the Wilson Council of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He was the Presidential Appointee to the National Council on the Arts of the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA) from 1982 to 1988, and is a founding member of the Federal Advisory Committee on International Exhibitions, a congressionally chartered committee that advises the NEA and the United States Information Agency on policy issues and on the selection of curators and exhibits to represent the U.S. at major exhibitions abroad. A graduate of the Wharton School of University of Pennsylvania, Raymond spent over 25 years in the international commodities trading field. He is presently a private investor and an author of the recently published book, Over a Barrel: Breaking the Middle East Oil Cartel. Melva and Raymond reside in Sharon, Connecticut.
VIK MUNIZ
Born in São Paulo, Brazil, Vik Muniz has come to stand out as one of the most articulate and innovative artists of his generation. His works are part of the collections of renowned institutions around the globe. In the United States, his works are in the collections of institutions such as the MoMA, the Whitney, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, all located in New York City, NY; the Art Institute of Chicago, IL; The Des Moines Art Center, IA; the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, MN; and the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, CA. Outside the United States, his works are in the collections of institutions such as the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo, Japan; the Tate Gallery in London, United Kingdom; Museu de Arte Moderna in Rio de Janeiro and Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, Brazil; and Centro Cultural Reina Sofia in Madrid, Spain.
In the past two years, Vik has had solo exhibitions in Miami, FL; Philadelphia, PA; São Paulo, Brazil; Paris, France; Milan, Italy; Tokyo, Japan; and Logroño and Madrid, Spain. His works have also been featured in Thirteen/WNET's The Egg Show, and in the short film Worst Possible Illusion: The Curiosity Cabinet of Vik Muniz, directed and produced by Anne-Marie Russel/Mixed Green Production.
Vik is also a prolific writer. He wrote the text for the book Reflex: A Vik Muniz Primer, published by Aperture in 2005. His essays have also been published in art magazines and in the book Vik Muniz, Natura Pictrix: Essays and Interviews on Photography, published in 2004. Vik currently resides in New York with his wife, artist Janaina Tschäpe.
YANCEY RICHARDSON
Yancey Richardson founded her gallery over a decade ago. In 1995, she opened a one-man show of Sebastião Salgado in the 560 Broadway building in SoHo. Since then, she has organized over eighty group and solo exhibitions and participated in over thirty art fairs, including The Armory Show, The Association of International Photography Art Dealers (AIPAD) Photography Show, Pulse, and Paris Photo. The gallery is now located in the heart of New York's Chelsea contemporary art gallery district and currently represents approximately 30 photographers. Over the years, the gallery has exhibited the works of such legends as Andre Kertesz, William Eggleston, Ed Ruscha, Julius Shulman and Mary Ellen Mark; mid-career artists such as Mitch Epstein, Andrew Moore, Laura Letinsky and Lynn Geesaman; and critically recognized emerging photographers such as Lisa Kereszi, Tom Hunter and David Hilliard.
Yancey received a B.A and M.A. from Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, and held the Helena Rubinstein Fellowship in Curatorial and Critical Studies at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1979. She serves on various boards and committees and has donated artworks to many benefit auctions, including those for the Public Art Fund, the International Center for Photography, and the Renaissance Society. She has moderated panels on contemporary photography for New York University and has been a guest speaker at Christie's Education program. For twelve years she served as Vice President of the AIPAD. She lives in New York with her husband and daughter.
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