Hauser & Wirth will donate 10 percent of all online sales profits to COVID-19 relief.
From left to right: Iwan Wirth, Manuela Wirth, and Marc Payot in early February 2020. Photo courtesy of Hauser & Wirth.
Mega-gallery Hauser & Wirth will be donating 10 percent of all online sales profits to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund. It is the first measure being taken as part of the gallery’s new philanthropic #artforbetter initiative.
The first of its online exhibitions, “George Condo: Drawings for Distanced Figures,” will launch this Friday. Additional programming under the initiative will be introduced over the following weeks and months with the#artforbetter program aiming to continue beyond the pandemic.
Iwan Wirth, co-president of Hauser & Wirth, said in a statement:
In discussions with the Hauser & Wirth family, including our artists, over these past difficult weeks, it became clear that these critical times demand a charitable response. We see ourselves as members of a worldwide community, and our support of the World Health Organization is a way to participate in an immediate humanitarian effort that supersedes borders. Our new initiative #artforbetter is now a central part of our longstanding philanthropic framework at the gallery, and it will reach beyond this moment.
The initiative is part of a larger effort in the art world to provide support amid the global health crisis. Cultural institutions around the United States are donating safety equipment to local hospitals; NADA and the ADAA have thrown their support behind a rent suspension bill; artist relief grants are being established; and just last week, the David Zwirner gallery invited 12 smaller New York City galleries to use its online viewing platform.
