Submit your artwork for Dead Darlings XX—In It Together, coming to W139 this December!
In It Together will be Dead Darling’s much-anticipated 20th anniversary event, its title serving less as an explicit theme for our upcoming auction and more as a reminder of our origins—a return to form, a rallying cry to our community and the art lovers around us.
To celebrate this milestone, not only will there be a full-length auction day that will include a show and auction of up to 80 selected artworks, ending in an old-school W139 bash, but in the weeks leading up to it, there will be panel discussions, t-shirt silkscreening sessions, and a big archival show that will display 20 years of Dead Darlings.
The choice of W139 as the home for this edition is also rooted in that spirit of solidarity. During the pandemic, Dead Darlings organized Love for Sale / Alles moet weg?—a successful online benefit auction and exhibition that played a vital role in allowing W139 to stay afloat after the loss of its structural funding.
As always, the theme is open to interpretation. In It Together is more a guiding principle: works that speak of community, support, solidarity, resistance, encouragement, or contributing to a common cause.
Deadline for application: 30 September 2025
For more information, practical considerations and the participation form, visit the website of Dead Darlings.
Dead Darlings began in 2005 as a subversive, anonymous art auction in Amsterdam. It has since grown into an international platform with a mission to explore the often fraught, always complex relationship between the price and the value of an artwork, focusing on dead darlings—works an artist has created but never brought to light. Inspired by “kill your darlings,” they ask: what becomes of these ambivalent works.
