Buy a little hope

That is the essence of a charity auction: buying a little hope. Whether the artwork is valuable or not, whether it has a high price or not, is of little importance.

In the auction I am writing about, there were two types of bidding: one loud, driven by urgency, that marketing tactic always in vogue, the “run or you’ll miss out,” without the opportunity, the chance for a good price, the bargain.

The other bid, silent, made by hand with a pencil on a printed stepped board attached to the wall next to each painting, each sculpture. A bit clandestine or secretive, because it protects the buyer’s identity with a number, which inevitably is revealed in the live voice (him or her or their agent).

Who bids at a charity auction?

This more spacious, leisurely, and attentive hand auction, focused on the works displayed to potential buyers, who can observe in detail what they have already seen during the days the pieces have been hanging on the walls of the Cádiz Women's Center, where the bids are held on a Friday in April.

Outside, the streets and cafes of Cádiz’s city center are crowded on a delightful spring afternoon. Inside... who would bid at a charity auction when they could be somewhere else?

There is everything, a curious generational mix of well-dressed older ladies who attentively follow the bids and a group of young and not-so-young people ready to raise their hand when the opportunity arises, whether it’s a façade by Enrique Cabanillas or one of Tony Carbonell’s colorful decorated fans.

Here, it’s not about betting on a work of art; it’s about betting on increasing hope for the families organized around the Cádiz Association of Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus.

But what is this?

Spina bifida? A tri-fold brochure explaining each seat in the improvised auction room has been placed. Because raising money for a charitable cause is good, but it’s equally important to inform rigorously about the medical problem faced by these families. It’s like laying the sleepers and rails on which the train will run, the basics.

I read in the leaflet:

“Spina bifida is a congenital malformation of the neural tube, characterized by one or more posterior vertebral arches not fusing correctly, so that the spinal cord is left in that place without bony protection.”

And what does this mean? What are the consequences for those who suffer from it?

I continue reading, later, a list that is at least unsettling:

“Loss of sensation below the level of the lesion. (…) Muscle weakness below the level of the lesion. (…) Alteration of the bladder and bowel muscles. (…) Hydrocephalus. (…) Other sequelae.”

For a boy or girl who has to grow up with this malformation, family support is essential, and for the families, the existence of an organization like this is priceless.

Much more than art

That’s why those who bid at this annual auction are really buying a little hope, hope that this malformation will be declared a chronic congenital defect, hope for comprehensive protection for those who suffer from it, or hope to raise society’s awareness of its daily implications.

So the primary goal: raise as much money as possible.

One cannot help but be amazed by a fact: there were more painters (about seventy) donating their paintings and sculptures selflessly than people bidding for them (which could be counted on both hands, more or less).

A fact that breaks with the idea of the artist locked in their ivory tower, worried solely about the excellence of their art, oblivious to the city’s daily life and the people they live with. Simply put, that’s not true. There may be some, but I don’t think they were among the donors.

Generosity and other virtues of culture

The master of ceremonies was painter Cecilio Chaves, supported by the president of the AGEBH, María Luisa Valderrama.

There were other painters in the room like Pepe Palacios or María Antonia Colón, with whom I was able to chat for a while. Both told me they weren’t going to bid. Simply, among their own works and others by friends or acquired previously, they had no space at home for another painting.

Cecilio Chaves, on the other hand, did bid and bought some works. He even outbid himself when there was a lack of competitive participation, seeing that the pieces he was taking (which he also recommended buying as gifts) deserved a higher price.

A mysterious Judit bid several times online (the auction was streamed on social media). The organization mentioned she was doing so from the U.S. state of Alabama.

There were couples bidding, one in unison, another competing in bids to raise the price the couple wanted to pay. Everything felt very familiar.

Hope has no price

The prices of the works at auction were more than affordable. The most expensive ones did not reach 400 euros, and the cheapest barely 5.

Nothing like the professional art market in Spain, where the most substantial sale in 2024 was a Keith Haring piece, the only one exceeding 500,000 euros. We’re talking about a market that in 2020, before the pandemic, recorded sales over 300 million euros.

None of that existed in the improvised Cádiz auction room. Here, the money was simple and round generosity. But who would dare to put a price on hope?

Some works were not sold. The artists who donated them know they will not recover them. They remain in deposit at the organization for future auctions.

And many doses of self-irony from Cecilio Chaves when a reproduction of one of his works was auctioned, presented as a piece by “a somewhat unknown author,” an irony he also directed at Pepe Palacios when presenting one of his typical landscapes of Cádiz’s estuaries: “very original from Pepe, I didn’t expect it.”

Good humor, good faces, and a good atmosphere. Oscar Wilde once wrote that “the artist is the creator of beautiful things. Revealing art and hiding the artist is the purpose of art.” This spring Friday in Cádiz was a perfect example.