Art for Ransom is an annual event to help
fund Arts Street, a 10-year old non-profit whose vision is to
create a community for youth through arts and creative job-training to
build personal success and leadership.The event included a silent and live
auction, from $20 to millions, of a new collection of Un-digital Art
Rebellion and other artworks contributed by local artists and youth.
This year's Art for Ransom was produced with the support of CVA of the Metropolitan State College of Denver, celebrating June 3 - July 3 as Creative Community Month at its new location, with an exhibit of artworks MIX - CVA+Santa Fe from galleries of the Art District on Santa Fe.
The idea developed at the 2008 student design
competition of the Art Directors Club of Denver. About 100 student
graphic designers teamed with professional art directors brainstormed
ways to design a marketing campaign for Arts-Street that costs next to
nothing. The winning team came up with the idea of Art for Ransom.
‘Where would we be without art?’ the team asked. ‘If art was suddenly
kidnapped, would we get a sense of its value?’ and would donors – big
and small – pay to get it back?
he first year launch of Art for Ransom marked the fun by
wrapping several pieces of public art in Denver, with the permission
of the city and the artists: The Yearling by Donald Lipski on
the tall red chair at the Denver Public Library, Untitled at
Civic Center Park by Robert Mangold, and East to West Source Point in
front of the Wellington Webb Building by Larry Kirkland. People were
upset that the pieces were covered and some even bothered to send us
hate mail. We were happy that the missing art was missed. A short video
of the 2009 Art for Ransom art wrapping process is posted at