Design Trust Charity Auction in partnership with Phillips

Design Trust and Phillips are delighted to present DESIGN TRUST Charity Auction as part of Phillips’ Hong Kong 20th Century & Contemporary Art & Design Day Sale. Design Trust is a non-profit grant-funding platform founded by a group of individuals from Hong Kong’s design community. This section of the sale will feature fourteen works generously donated by international artists, collectors, galleries and designers, including Michael Lau, anothermountainman, Cao Fei and Vitamin Creative Space, MAP Office, Studio Swine, Michael Young, Debbie Lo Creativity Foundation, Zaha Hadid Design, Enrico Marone Cinzano and Pearl Lam Galleries, Nils Neckel / Designlink, The Haas Brothers and R & Company, Mak Ying Tung 2 and de Sarthe Gallery, Adrian Wong, and Michael Anastassiades. All proceeds will go towards supporting Design Trust’s core mission and granting programmes to foster and nurture the design community in Hong Kong and the region, addressing the immediate impact of Covid-19, as well as ongoing efforts of the realisation of Design Trust Futures Studio micro-parks across Hong Kong.

Jonathan Crockett, Chairman, Asia, Phillips said, “Phillips has been an ardent supporter of Design Trust as its auction partner in its past annual fundraising galas. Given the challenges presented by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, we are pleased to continue our support of Design Trust by dedicating a specially curated section to them within our upcoming 20th Century & Contemporary Art and Design Day Sale in Hong Kong. It has been a humbling experience to work with so many generous benefactors from the international art and design community who have come together to support such an important cause.”

Marisa Yiu, Co-Founder, Executive Director, Design Trust said, “We are honoured to partner with Phillips, a keen supporter of Design Trust’s annual fundraising gala for the past few years, on their 20th Century & Contemporary Art & Design Day Sale. We are also very fortunate to have received donated works from renowned and award-winning artists, designers, galleries. Since our inception in 2014, Design Trust’s core mission has always been to encourage creative research and nurture the development of design innovation in Hong Kong and beyond. The past few months have been a challenging time for all, and this auction will hopefully stand as a testament to the vibrancy and resilience of the region’s design community and reinforces the positive value of design during difficult times.”

Among the diverse offerings are artworks created by a number of Hong Kong based artists, including Michael Lau, Stanley Wong (anothermountainman), Au Hoi Lam and Mak Ying Tung 2. Leading the sale is acclaimed contemporary artist Michael Lau’s 1 + 1 = 3 (1969), from his Package-Change series. Within the classic modern characters from 1900 to 2000, Michael recognises their own characteristics, motions, originality, colours, fonts, style, and even packaging. Adding some slight touches of humour by changing a portion of the surface, Michael pays homage to the classics without losing his distinctive creativity. He also challenges the use of materials and format by shaping the canvas frame to resemble an original toy blister pack, even including the die-cut shape at the top. Each character is seen painted within a transparent laminated acrylic ‘box’ in the painting to mimic a blister pack feeling. Best known for his redwhiteblue series, Hong Kong artist anothermountainman, a longtime Design Trust supporter and DTFS mentor, has produced a sizable embroidered canvas piece, titled redwhiteblue / nowhere, now here based on this popular series exclusively for the charity sale. We are also grateful for the support from the Design Trust community including--Michael Young and Studio Swine, who were both DTFS 2019 mentors, have also generously contributed to the charity auction with their works; MAP Office, a Hong Kong-based design duo and recipients of our first Feature Grant in 2014, kindly offered the stunning Hong Kong is Land (2014) from their Design Trust funded project “Uneven Growth” which explores the uneven growth and different forms of ecologies in Hong Kong. The piece was exhibited at the MoMA in New York in 2014, MAK Vienna 2015, and many other museums later.