Bono, Naomi Campbell, and More Team Up at Art Basel Miami Beach to Fight AIDS

Bono, Naomi Campbell, and More Team Up at Miami Art Basel to Fight AIDS

Last night, Miami was seeing red.

Five years after its last auction, the Bono-led charity (RED) made a triumphant return at the Design District’s famed Moore Building. It brought together celebrities such as Naomi Campbell, Christian Louboutin, Larry Gagosian, and the U2 front man himself.

Some of the items on the auction block? Theaster Gates’s A Flag for the Least of Them (Gates and Sir David Adjaye curated the evening’s art and item selection, along with some help from Sotheby’s and the Gagosian Gallery) as well as a lab-grown-diamond ring designed by Jony Ive and Marc Newson.

The night started with cocktails in the courtyard, which had pun-filled names like “The Inc(red)ible Mule” (Belvedere Vodka, Fever-Tree Ginger Beer, and lime juice). Then it was off to the bidding.

The room, filled with clear and red chairs, was packed. Many guests watched the event from the balcony above. Bono, after warmly greeting Campbell with a kiss on the hand, took the stage.

“Six thousand 6,000 sentient souls dying every day of a preventable, treatable disease isn’t a cause, is it? It’s an emergency. Even though that number has halved since we began this—3,000 sentient souls dying every day of a preventable, treatable disease—is still an emergency,” he said. “This is not the cause business as usual. You see, HIV is no normal virus, no normal foe. Its presence is a freak event of enormous magnitude. “

“These auctions have been game-changing for the AIDS fight. It’s not just about the cash they bring in, which is literally lifesaving—but it’s also about the heat, about keeping this epidemic on the public agenda. Art has always been a vehicle for activism and for truth telling, and the truth of the matter is that we’re at a pivotal point where the progress we’ve achieved is in real jeopardy,” he told the room.

He ended his passionate speech in song: “Darkness always gathers around the light,” he crooned. “There is a light, don’t let it go out.” Then the paddles started flying. An auction highlight was Gates’s work, which sold for $807,000—a record. Ive and Newson’s diamond went for $256,250.

The auction raised $5.5 million, which was matched by the Melinda and Bill Gates Foundation. All in all, 10.5 was donated. And counting—the (RED) auction online continues through December 7.