Bailout for the Rest of Us: Recession Art Sale combines art and commerce

Aug. 21, 2009 - PRLog -- NEW YORK - In a 50,000 sq ft. gallery space, thirty artists and thirty out-of-work professionals will participate in Recession Art Sale, an art and commerce event in the center of Manhattan from September 17 – October 10, 2009.

Amidst a glass-walled space at 679 3rd Ave (at the corner of 43rd St.), Recession Art Sale will host a diverse group of artists and sellers, reflecting the wide economic spectrum of the recently unemployed. The objective is to create income, comment on current shifts in the market economy, and foster a sense of community amongst artists, sellers, and buyers. Unemployed individuals affected by the current economic recession will be engaged as sellers to market the works on exhibit.

Hosting the event is Anita Durst’s nonprofit arts organization, Chashama, which has worked successfully with conceptual artist and Executive Producer of Recession Art Sale, Elanit Kayne. In 2002, Kayne’s Times Square installation, "All I Want for Christmas is Nothing: An Experiment in Value", considered sellers’ and buyers’ notions of the relative worth of objects.

Kayne partners with Co-Producer Frank Shifreen, founder of the Gowanus Art Canal Project, to create the Recession Art Sale gallery for 30 top-selling international artists. Shifreen, the New York partner of www.cultureinside.com, an award-winning exhibition site currently available in French, German and English, is hosting the online gallery for the project. Marketing and management consultant and graduate of the Park School of Communication at Ithaca College, Sarah Vaynerman, joins the project as Director of Operations and Marketing.

A multi-channel outreach to sellers was conducted through the use of print and online advertising, job opportunity sites, and social media in order to attract an eclectic group of qualified applicants. While some sellers have a background in the arts (a former employee of the Whitney Museum, Art History graduates), other qualified sellers include former IT workers and teachers and will receive art consultation training. Positions are still available.

Artists will include: Noah Baen, Matthew Beall, Gene de Bartolo, Michele Brody, Peter Cicariello, Thom Corn, Carla Cubitt, Shanee Epstein,  Ekterina Existart, Mark Grimm and Amy Cheatle, Karen Gunderson, Janusz Jaworski, Elanit Kayne, KK Kozik, Lorenzo Pace, Gila Paris, Susu Pianchupattana, Yulia Pinkusevich, Thaddeus Radell, Mike and Sherry Rader, Robin Ross, Rafael Rodriguez, Barnaby Ruhe, Charles Seplowin, Frank Shifreen, Lucy Slivinski, Tiffany Sum, & Lane Twitchell.

View the Official Site of the Recession Art Sale at www.recessionartsale.com and www.cultureinside.com

About Chashama:
Chashama was founded by Anita Durst in 1995 with the central purpose of keeping artists in New York by giving them the space to create.  Durst realized that the lack of affordable space was the greatest threat to sustaining a diverse, dynamic, and provocative cultural environment in New York City.  Her strategy to address this was to find a way to connect artists with vacant real estate, redistributing the untapped resources available in New York’s urban landscape by partnering with private and corporate property owners.  Chashama has converted more than 40 locations, giving 7,500 artists access to subsidized space, which supported approximately 10,000 public presentations for over 500,000 viewers.


Contact:
Sarah Vaynerman for Recession Art Sale
718-938-5621
recessionartsale@gmail.com
www.recessionartsale.com