Hasta La Ideas

This year Earth Day turns 40, and Christie’s is celebrating with a Green Auction, a carbon-neutral affair for which the house is waiving its fees and commissions so that all of the green raised can be distributed among four environmental not-for-profits: Oceana, the Central Park Conservancy, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and Conservation International. Among the artists who have contributed works for the live auction, which takes place Thursday evening in New York, are Damien Hirst (whose own interpretation of green, a 2010 work entitled “All You Need is Jealousy,” is pictured at right) Olafur Eliasson, Jenny Holzer, Keith Tyson, Zeng Fanzhi, and Subodh Gupta.

If your walls are as full as your pockets, we suggest trying for some of the extraordinary experiences on offer, including a trip for six to Botswana with National Geographic editor-in-chief and veteran photojournalist Chris Johns, who will provide photography lessons to ensure that you return home with wildebeast shots that are suitable for framing. Got a little one at home with star quality? Bid on the chance for him or her to be featured in a Gap ad. Make of it what you will that the package also includes four tickets to the Los Angeles premiere of a film called Despicable Me. (And really, wouldn’t your kid prefer the Kenny Scharf painting?) The planet-protecting initiative continues in the online silent auction, where lots include a farm-fresh painting by Karen Kilimnik, lunch with Vera Wang, a satisfying neon work by Joseph Kosuth, and “24 hours in the mind-set of Axel Vervoordt.”

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