MOCO Museum London Hosts LGBTQ+ Art Auction by Pink Noise Foundation Featuring Beth Ditto and Olly Alexander”

MOCO Museum in London’s Marble Arch hosted a Pink Noise Foundation fundraising auction during PRIDE month, featuring emerging and established LGBTQI+ artists and artists who support the community.

MOCO Museum Art Collection Manager Katy Richfield curated the exhibition and auction with Pink Noise and Daniel Lismore. Artworks were donated by Alison Jackson, Bambi, Ben Eine, Deborah Azzopardi, Chris Levine, ENDLESS, Fox Fisher, Hattie Stewart, Ian Brennan, Jess Wilson, Kristjana S Williams, Laura Stowers, Lucy Perfect, MYSTIQ, Pussy Riot, Trackie McLeod and Zoe Grace.

Beth Ditto and Olly Alexander performed before the live auction on 3rd July, which raised £20,000 with top lots including Alison Jackson’s PRIDE Playboy, Tongue in Cheek by Hayden Kays and a portrait of Daniel Lismore by Chris Levine, portraitist of the late Queen Elizabeth II. Alison Jackson created the PRIDE Playboy print for the auction in a rainbow-inspired palette, the first time she has veered away from her signature black and white Paparazzi-style shots of lookalikes.

The Pink Noise Foundation auction was conceived by Mighty Hoopla founder Glyn Fussell and MOCO Museum’s Katy Richfield. Pink Noise Foundation is a community-led that supports and strengthens the most vulnerable members and organisations of the LGBTQ+ community. Created by the founders of Sink The Pink and Mighty Hoopla, Glyn Fussell and Jamie Tagg, the charity is dedicated to making real change for grassroots LGBTQIA+ charities and organisations and supports them 365 days a year in their efforts to fight for change.

Glyn Fussell spoke to me at MOCO Museum before the auction and gave me some insight into why it’s so important: “What we are doing with the auction is bringing together Pop culture and Queer culture. Pink Noise really started because we wanted to create a charity that supports grass roots LGBTQI+ organisations and support the unseen people that maybe don’t get to march in PRIDE. Lots of grass roots organisations were vanishing so Pink Noise was set up in response to that. This year it felt so important to be supporting the Trans community, especially as a Trustee of Not a Phase. It’s exciting to bring people into this space (MOCO Museum) and put on an event like this.”

Highlights of the online auction include; Day of the City Action by Pussy Riot founding member and conceptual artist Nadya; I LOVE YOU by Bambi, PRIDE Hope, a unique collaged artwork by Kristjana S Williams; London Rainbow by RUDE; Defend Trans Lives by Fox Fisher; and Ian Brennan’s Tissues.

Ian Brennan explained the meaning behind his painting: “This piece depicts the internal struggle of having to remove a mask and identify as our true selves. While Pride is a time of celebration, it is also an arrival point. We have arrived at a moment in time, but not without pain. This piece captures the tears that were wept and the tissues used to soak up the painful emotions LGBTQ+ people can feel when trying to just exist as themselves, and sometimes achieving such a basic right still takes a lot of activism and fight to achieve their freedoms and their truth.”

The LGBTQI+ community has historically made a significant contribution to the arts and culture–from Studio 54, Warhol and The Factory in New York to Boy George and Leigh Bowery at Taboo in London–and the rich cultural legacy of the community is gaining more prominence in museums, with Tate Modern’s Leigh Bowery retrospective and the Fashion + Textile Museum’s Outlaws: Fashion Renegades of 80s London exhibitions serving as notable examples.

MOCO Museum showcases artworks by prominent LGBTQI+ artists including Andy Warhol and Keith Haring, and the museum’s Art Collection Manager Katy Richfield explained to me before the live auction how she wanted to thank and support the community through initiatives such as the Pink Noise Art Fundraiser: “We just really wanted to shine a spotlight on the fact that the art world owes such a massive debt to the LGBTQI+ community. It would be such a boring world without Andy Warhol and all of the club culture from Studio 54. Same with Keith Haring whose work was showing people dancing and rejoicing–at a time when HIV was at its peak, and he was trying to educate. Haring’s work still has a powerful impact and message of getting rid of fear from people. We really felt with the museum, we have such a young audience including families and young kids. Sometimes when you go to museums you feel like its an elitist place, but at MOCO Museum we wanted the art to spark conversations about the society we live in today, and to celebrate all these different communities. We wanted to give a voice to artists from the LGBTQI+ community who are emerging or more established, including Fox Fisher, Daniel Lismore and Nadya from Pussy Riot, who protested in a country where being queer is illegal.”

Glyn Fussell commented: “That (quite small) moment with Leigh Bowery in the 80s in London, really informed popular culture. When we started doing Sink the Pink back in the day, it was a smash n’grab of art, punk, Drag and Pop Culture. All very DIY. That’s something I like about this museum is that it makes art accessible to everyone, and it’s not pretentious. The art is online after the live auction for all of PRIDE month.”

The Pink Noise Foundation exhibition is on view at MOCO Museum until the end of July and bidding for the online auction is open here.