Davida Nemeroff, “Fallen Star” (2016), inkjet print, 8″ x 10″ (all images courtesy “Amplify Compassion: An Art Sale to Benefit the ACLU” via Tumblr unless otherwise noted)
LOS ANGELES — “Amplify Compassion” may be the best name for an art sale to benefit the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) during a time when the President himself utterly lacks compassion, managing only occasionally to shout “Sad!” at the end of random tweets.
Over post–Inauguration Day weekend, LA artists Paul Pescador, Rochele Gomez, Daniel Ingraff, and Nick Lowe organized “Amplify Compassion,” a two-day benefit sale at 356 Mission with works by more than 200 artists. The event began on the same day as the women’s march in downtown Los Angeles and raised more than $100,000 for the ACLU — which took its first legal action against Donald Trump just hours before the inauguration. The organization filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking data on conflicts of interest related to his and his family’s business interests.
More than 600 people flowed through the doors of the gallery after the massive LA women’s march (which turned out an estimated 750,000 people, making it even larger than the one in Washington, DC, with an estimated 470,000 people). The items up for sale ranged in price, size, and form. T-shirts with anti-Trump messages like “The Bully is the Beginning of All Other Oppressions” and ceramic buttons were on the more affordable end of the spectrum, ranging from $20 to $40. Works of art then started at $50 on the low end and went up to $1,000 and beyond.
Read the full article on Hyperallergic: http://hyperallergic.com/353654/la-artists-raised-100k-for-the-aclu-now-what/
