LEO BURNETT LAUNCH SHELTER AUCTION

For one weekend only London gallery Haunch of Venison is playing host to a special exhibition featuring work donated by artists as varied as Damien Hirst and Vivienne Westwood. The show, which culminates with an auction on the evening of Monday 28 September, aims to raise over £100,000 for UK homeless charity Shelter.

The event is the culmination of a year-long campaign engineered by Leo Burnett London across media ranging from TV to print, through to a presence at the Glastonbury music festival. Co-curated by Becky Poostchi, Malena Bach and Leo Burnett creatives Richard Brim and Daniel Fisher, the House of Cards exhibition includes donations from 53 leading artists drawn from the worlds of fashion, photography, film, painting, street culture and object based installations.

With an open brief, each of the contributors was invited to create a piece based on one playing card from the deck, with varying creative responses. Bespoke artworks include a stunning model crown representing the King of Spades created by Alexander McQueen, a one-off Boo Ritson painting/photograph of paint covered Jammie Dodgers for the Eight of Hearts along with the wild card, an Ace of Hearts, a diamond dusted butterfly collage on a heart shaped background, produced by Damien Hirst.

Ahead of the launch party shots.net had a sneak preview with Brim and Fisher and found out exactly what it took to bring a leading line-up of contemporary artists together in one place for such a worthy cause.

How did the idea to evolve the TV campaign into an art auction come about?
Fisher: We're always looking for ways to extend advertising ideas into non-traditional channels and we knew this campaign would have to fight hard to be heard against a whole range of other good causes vying for attention. With House of Cards we had a very simple communications icon that could be taken into all sorts of areas and an exhibition seemed like a natural extension of the idea as it could raise both awareness and money at the same time.

Were you concerned at all that you'd struggle to attract high profile artists like Hirst who were essential to gaining visibility for the project?
Fisher: Artists of this calibre get asked to donate work all the time but we were confident the overall concept was good enough to attract them to it and from the feedback we got this was the case, which is very flattering.

How did you go about choosing and contacting the various artists involved?
Fisher: We wanted a broad variety of artistic styles and backgrounds and were also determined not be too elitist so we sat down and drew up our dream list. And fortunately we had a friend in the art world who helped us get the ball rolling.

Did you try to influence the creative responses by targeting certain cards at certain artists?
Brim: We gave some of the artists specific cards yes. Stephen Webster, the creative director of Garrards, was given the Ten of Diamonds in the hope of receiving ten six carat-ers but in a recession that might be wishful thinking. However he did produce a unique card made from metal and Perspex that looks amazing. I think one of the most fascinating elements of this project was the way you could never predict what people were going to do.

How did it feel watching the submissions come in one by one and seeing the exhibition take shape piece by piece?
Brim: Wonderfully weird. It's not everyday that you have people like Damien Hirst and David Bailey answering your brief and doing so with such humility. There was a bizarre moment at the framers where we stood with all the unframed work laid out in front of us and it really hit home what we had managed to do.

Do either of you have a favourite piece from the collection?
Brim: Yes we do but that would be telling. After all there is an auction on Monday. It's been inspirational to witness first hand the dedication and perfectionism of these people but that's the reason they are where they are.

And visitors can take home their own pack of cards right?
Brim: We have produced 1000 limited edition packs of cards containing all the artworks from the exhibition. We collaborated on the design of them with Pentagram London and they're being sold exclusively in Harrods (which again is quite flattering) or from the Shelter House of Cards website