“It’s been great,” mused Rob Pruitt at RxArt’s annual party at New York City’s Stephan Weiss Studio last night. “The first thing I did was the cafeteria of St. Jude children’s hospital in Memphis, and I made a series of eight pictures of mama pandas and baby pandas and papa pandas feeding each other bamboo, because it was the cafeteria. They were made out of these Mylar paillettes that signs used to be made out of in Las Vegas. They shimmer in the breeze, and so as soon as they were installed, some of the little kids gathered around one of them and were blowing little breezes.”
The artist was talking about one of several projects he has created with Diane Brown of RxArt—colorful works that transform children’s hospitals into less frightening places for patients and their families. Pruitt was being honored alongside PillPack’s TJ Parker, and the mood in the room was one of excitement and enthusiasm, as guests snacked on mini pigs in a blanket served to them by panda-suited servers; sipped tequila cocktails; and bid on works by Ed Ruscha, John Baldessari, and Alex Prager.
“I’m excited about all the projects!” exclaimed Brown as Jenna Lyons, who presented her friend Pruitt with his Inspiration Award (“Rob won my heart the first time we met,” she told the room), Bill Powers, and Glenn O Brien took in the wares at hand. “We work with the most awesome artists! We just pay the artists an honorarium, then we pay for the materials and installation, so they’re doing it because they want to make a difference in children’s lives.”
“After many years of making work and having gallery shows and seeing it go into very, very nice homes where it was loved, this was a whole other side to the coin that just felt so much more meaningful,” said Pruitt. “I was flooded with the feeling that this is the right thing to do.”
Funds raised during the live and silent auction will go to projects in development with Dan Colen, Urs Fischer at Cedars-Sinai, and more.