Sharon Stone hosted an auction benefit both Bailey House and Housing Works, which provide services for people living with HIV and AIDS and other chronic illnesses.
This year’s Art House benefit honored photographer Nan Goldin, whose work has explored the HIV and AIDS crisis and the LGBTQ community.
Other photographers in the featured auction were Bob Gruen, Robert Mapplethorpe, Herb Ritts and Ruben Natal-San Miguel who offered a picture of Drag Race star Ongina and covered the event for The WOW Report.
While hosting the ART HOUSE Gala honoring Nan Goldin on Wednesday, the actor and activist focused her speech on the drug pushing she experienced while her son was recovering from a ski accident in the hospital.
Stone said how she has repeatedly had to ask medical staff to stop administering OxyContin to her son.
This is not because I or Nan disagree with painkillers. We don’t.
We disagree with paid drug dealers.”
Nan Goldin, founder of the advocacy group Prescription Addiction Intervention Now (PAIN), has famously shed light on the opioid crisis, LGBTQ communities, and the HIV/AIDS crisis including a documentary about the opiod crisis that was nominated for an Oscar this year, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed.
Goldin, 69, told the crowd about her Loss through AIDS,
I lost my whole community … At the beginning, nobody knew what this disease was. They called it the gay cancer. … I keep my people alive through my work.”
Teaming up with Goldin, Stone hasn’t shied away from raising her voice on several crises, including the AIDS epidemic, which she said “nearly destroyed” her career in the ’90s when very few people were addressing it.
The event ended up raising thousands for two great charities and people went home with some amazing photographs.
Look for the online auction of more works at Baily House and Housing Works and donate to the vital causes.
(Photographs, Ruben Natal-San Miguel)
