Auction Of Globally-Renowned Artists On The French Riviera Benefits Coral Reef Protection And Restoration

Forbes

a day ago

Vibrant yellow googly eyes outlined in pale blue oil stick peer out from the top left of the canvas, adjacent to a face with three vertically stacked eyes. Large drips of white and blue paint obscure the chattering teeth frantically farmed in red in the lower canvas, hinting at water and perhaps someone being silenced. The artist's name 'moyo' is scrawled in pale blue oil stick over the face, suggesting a personal narrative. Myriad self referential symbols swim around the monumental painting, soaring more than five feet high and over feet wide. The bold colors emerge from a graphite background, evoking an emergence from darkness into light.
Móyòsóré Martins, Emi Ko (It's Not Me) (2023) is among the 36 artworks featured in Thirty Six for Coral, an exhibition presented by The Coral Collective, an initiative by ocean charity Project Zero, on view June 12-20 at the Grand-Hôtel du Cap-Ferrat on the French Riviera. Emi Ko is among select pieces to be auctioned at a closing gala on June 20, with proceeds directly supporting coral reef protection and restoration around the world.
With an opening bid of €15,000 ($17,168), Emi Ko is expected to fetch between €25,000 ($28,614) and €35,000 ($40,060). Viewers cannot look away from the googly eyes or the stacked eyes on the Dogan-like figure honoring Martins' Brazilian father, underscoring the urgency to face serious decline in biodiversity and potential functional climate extinction of coral reefs. Born 1986 in Lagos, Nigeria, to a Nigerian mother from Ekiti state, the New York-based mixed-media artist paints complex layers from his imagination. Móyò, as he's better known, studied computer science in Ghana and the Ivory Coast before immigrating to New York City in 2015. A rising master, Martins has quickly developed a global following.
'I'm honored to contribute this piece in support of saving our coral reefs—a vital ecosystem that urgently needs our care,' Martins said. 'This work is my way of speaking up, and I hope it stirs something in you too. We still have time to protect what remains. Let's not wait.'
Works on view and on the auction block represent a wide range of practices.
Brooklyn-based Dustin Yellin, founder of multidisciplinary cultural center Pioneer Works, offers Help!, a suspended figure, with a large whole in its torso and arms bent at the elbows and hands pressed against a glass veneer sculpture. Evoking a perilous underwater scene, the artwork amplifies the need to raise global awareness and secure essential funding for protection and restoration of one of the most critically endangered ecosystems on Earth. The 'frozen cinema' sculpture – which embeds streaks of paint and a plethora of tiny clippings from magazines, art history books, encyclopedias, dictionaries, and found notebooks into sheets of laminated glass – opens with a starting bid of €40,000 ($€40,000), on an estimate of €60,000 ($68,564) to €80,000 ($€40,000).
Offering a brighter outlook, perhaps, See The Light by OSGEMEOS (a collaborative project of Brazilian twin brothers Gustavo and Otavio Pandolfo, whose moniker means 'the twins' in Portuguese) welcomes us into their fantastical, colorful, glimmering universe. It's as if the face is being transported to another planet by a spaceship crown. Bidding for the mixed media on wood artwork begins at €75,000 ($85,704), and it's expected to draw in between €125,000 ($142,841) and €150,000 ($171,401).
'This year's exhibition and auction is a beautiful initiative for inspiring the world to recognize the huge significance of these tiny beings for our oceans and planet,' OSGEMEOS said. 'We are thrilled to be part of this admirable initiative and to know that our artwork is going to help in some way.'
'This world is a mess, and while we are busy annihilating whole populations, it's easy to forget that we continue to destroy our planet.,' said Michelle Edelman, a member of the The Coral Collective board and founder of Traffic Arts. "Coral reefs are a vital life force. Just like the rainforests—they are essential to the health of our planet. I am deeply moved by the commitment of The Coral Collective and Project Zero to stay focused and do this important work, and extremely grateful to each individual who supports 36forCoral—the many exciting artists who contributed their inspiring work, and to the patrons who will buy it, or simply donate to the cause."
Participating artists include: Akwetey Orraca-Tetteh, Alexis Rockman, Beth O'Donnell, Bradley Theodore, Britt Boutros-Ghali. Cavier Coleman, Charlotte Colbert, Deborah Kass, Francesco Clemente, Helen Beard, Henrietta Armstrong, Jemima Kirke, Jordan "Watts" Watson, Kevin Francis Grey, Manuela Zervadachi, Marc Quinn, Mauro Perucchetti, Nabil Nahas, Nana Funo, Petroc Sesti, Philip Colbert, RETNA, Rob and Nick Carter, Rocco Ritchie, Shezad Dawood, Sholto Blissett, Steve Hash, Tessa Campbell Fraser, Touils, Vik Muniz, and Walton Ford.