Contemporary Art Beach Towels

The Art Production Fund is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping artists realize difficult-to-produce works, reaching new audiences and expanding public participation and understanding of contemporary art. They first debuted their limited edition Contemporary Art Beach Towels at Art Basel Miami 2008, where they were used as the official pool towels at the Raleigh hotel.  (In an interesting convergence, the very next year, I hung out on the roof of the same hotel–no towels though–at Neon Monster’s Design Miami party.)

The Contemporary Art Beach Towels series is part of the  annual WOW (Works on Whatever), a collection of everyday items designed by artists (and sponsored by Target stores) to bring art off the walls and into homes. Artists who have made work for the 60×70 inch cotton towel “canvases” include: Jeff Koons, Elizabeth Peyton, Cindy Sherman, Kehinde Wiley, Jasper Johns, Tracey Emin, Peter Doig, Yoshimoto Nara, Elizabeth Peyton, Ed Ruscha, Julian Schnabel, Marilyn Minter, Richard Pettibon, Rob Pruitt, Alex Katz and Richard Phillips.

The usual suspects are probably sold out, but there’s still a bunch of contemporary art beach towels available for $95 each here. If these aren’t quite your thing, may I direct you to Mike Leavitt’s Suicidal Celebrity Bath Towels instead?