Grayson Perry and Cornelia Parker donate works to Freedom from Torture charity auctions

Mona Hatoum's T42 (GOLD) (1999)
Photo courtesy Alexander and Bonin, New York (Photo Bill Orcutt)
Anish Kapoor, Cornelia Parker and Mona Hatoum are among the artists who have donated works to the latest online auction in aid of Freedom from Torture, a charity which provides psychological therapy and counselling for survivors at five centres across the UK.
The online auction runs until 6 November, inviting minimum bids on more than 50 works. Yinka Shonibare’s relief print Aristocrat I (2018) has a guide price of £5,000 while Pablo Bronstein’s etching (Design for a Cake Basket and Two Muffineers En-Suite 1, 2017) has a guide price of £3,500.
A separate live auction for the charity to be held at Sotheby’s London on 6 November includes works by Julian Opie, Maggi Hambling and Grayson Perry who has produced a ceramic piece especially for the event (Product of the Unconscious, estimate £80,000 to £95,000).
Ai Weiwei's Taxi Window Crank (2012)
©Ai Weiwei Studio; Courtesy Lisson Gallery
Ai Weiwei has consigned four of his glass taxi window cranks to the live sale (estimate £10,000 to £15,000). Explaining the work, an auction statement says: “In an attempt to prevent passengers from throwing incendiary pamphlets out the windows of taxis while passing Tiananmen Square during the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China [in 2012], the Beijing government ordered all window cranks to be removed from taxis… this work demonstrates the absurdity of implementing restrictions on a person's physical presence for the benefit of those in power in a digital, social media-driven age.”
Grayson Perry's Product of the Unconscious (2023)
© Grayson Perry. Courtesy the artist and Victoria Miro
All of the sale proceeds from both auctions go towards the charity (since its inception in 2003, the biennial event has raised more than £1m). Freedom from Torture says in a statement: “In 2021 our pioneering rehabilitation services supported 709 survivors from almost 50 countries, including Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Iran.”

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