Wow. Every Christmas since 1988, Peter Norton and his family have commissioned artists to create a work, which they produced and sent out to friends, family and other art world folks. Now Norton, a MoMA trustee, is emptying out the closet and donating all the extra pieces for sale, with proceeds set to benefit PS1 [Norton was the Chairman of PS1 until just recently. I’ve helped do fundraising for both MoMA and PS1 for more than 15 years now.]
Anyway, the works are priced from just $45 for the 1990 gift, a CD by Richard Kostelanetz, to $675 [$750 for MoMA non-members] for the 2002 and 2005 gifts, an awesome doll house by Yinka Shonibare and an awesome music box by Christian Marclay, respectively, to $900/$1000 for 1997, Kara Walker’s classic silhouette pop-up book. If there’s a bargain in the bunch, it’s probably 2004, a beautiful glass bowl with molded handprints in the bottom by Do Ho Suh, which is just $225/$250. It’s a very MoMA-y, Christmas-y, and well executed gesture.
There are seven other editions, including the very awesome 1998, a blanket by Jim Hodges, that are only available if you buy the “complete set” for $5580/$6200. The quotation marks around “complete set” probably refer to the absence of the 2000 gift, a Mr Pointy figurine by Takashi Murakami, and the 2007 gift, a pair of tricky salt and pepper shakers by Nina Katchadourian.
So whether you’re filling in your collection for the years you were on the outs with the Nortons or you want to give a little something back after so many years of getting art free and unbidden in the mail, it’s a pretty sweet deal.
The Peter Norton Family Christmas Art Projects editions will go on sale October 28 at 9AM at MoMAstore.org/Norton [momastore.org]
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the making of, by greg allen