The sculptor Paul McCarthy's works are almost invariably unsettling (Mechanical Pig, 2005, is a fine case in point) and when he really gets going -- as in 1992's mechanized Cultural Gothic, with its innocent young boy humping a goat in a glade as his dad nods approvingly -- the work can, at times, verge on the downright repulsive. And yet somehow over the year's he's managed to keep us asking for more (which probably says more about us than about him).

For fans of McCarthy's sculptures and installations, most of which are, in fact, intensely visceral commentaries on and critiques of a plasticized, consumerist culture completely disconnected from the natural world, your prayers have been answered. On Monday, February 26, Christie's will be auctioning off several works from the personal collection of legendary Swiss art connoisseur Pierre Huber, including one piece of special note -- McCarthy's Bear and Rabbit on a Rock.

In Bear and Rabbit, McCarthy executes a tableau of an almost poetic perversity.

At first glance, it appears to mimic two stuffed animals placed by a child in a warm, friendly hug. But upon further inspection one realizes that the stuffed animals are doing more than just hugging.

As the Christie's catalog has it:

"In Bear and Rabbit on a Rock, the exultant rabbit throws its head back as if in sexual climax, while the leering bear -- presumably the source of this pleasure -- grins at its own prowess. Inherently absurd in its inter-species copulation, this sculpture stages that which is actively proscribed, and therefore revolting -- although the origin of such disgust is not so much the result of biological anomaly as it is of social conditioning against animalistic and literally non-productive impulses."

Perhaps. But the "biological anomaly" is creepy enough for us as it is.

Bear and Rabbit on a Rock is expected to fetch upwards of a million dollars.

-- NIA ELIZABETH SHEPHERD

As if Gary Baseman weren't busy enough, the L.A.-based "pervasive artist" / painter / TV writer and producer ("Teacher's Pet") recently put down his paint brush long enough to pick up the telephone and ask some artist friends to re-imagine, of all things, a series of paint-by-number canvases for an auction called "Charity by Numbers." (Pictured at right: Baseman's entry in the auction.)

Here he reflects on the result of his efforts -- which, by the way, raised a cool $195,000 for The Alliance for Children's Rights.

ON BEING THE AUCTION'S ARTIST WRANGLER:

Bruce [Helford, husband of Corey Helford, who owns the gallery] sort of off-hand told me that he's been collecting these vintage paint-by-number pieces, and he wanted to do something with the charity. I was, like, "I'm on board, and I'm going to help!"

ON THE CONCEPT:

What I loved is you can re-imagine these kind of kitschy images that were created so that anyone could become a painter. You know, the notion that you can create your own Picasso, or your own landscape [or, as Baseman tongue-in-cheekily pronounces it, "lawnd-scape"], or your own nude by following the rules, when the reality is that to really become an artist you break the rules. I love the idea of taking contemporary artists and having them recreate -- or deconstruct, or reconstruct -- these images into their own work.

FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES:

I started asking my friends like Mark Ryden and Marion Peck. Actually, Mark is having a really big show here at the Michael Kohn Gallery on March 10. He's amazing. (At right: Ryden's The Birth.) I asked and I couldn't even believe he said yes, because of his upcoming exhibition -- but that was just him being so gracious. And Christian and Rob Clayton, who show at Bellwether in New York, they're wonderful painters. And Shepherd Fairey. Artists of that stature.

ON PULLING IT ALL TOGETHER IN TWO MONTHS:

It was fucking crazy! I lost a few artists -- maybe a dozen who weren't able to take part because they had shows in February -- but maybe 90 percent of the artists I asked said "yes."

ON THE L.A. ART SCENE AND 'PERVASIVE ART':

L.A. has a wonderful art community. It's like the wild, wild West, and it really is subversive to the traditional power structure of the fine art world because a lot of the artists here are showing in small galleries or boutiques and are more apt to be seen in the museum stores rather than the actual museums. And our fan base comes not necessarily from the proper collections or the proper curators, but from the people. It's a real populist movement.

I call it "pervasive art," the idea of art that's perceived everywhere. Some people try to call it low brow or "pop surrealism," but I don't like to name an art movement based on the content. The idea is that we're creating art that uses all the media available to us. So the definition of pervasive art is as long as you stay true to your aesthetic and message, you can put your art on anything and everything.

-- LIZ McDANIEL

An impressive array of artists has joined forces in an eye-popping charity auction organized by Gary Baseman and the Corey Helford Gallery in Culver City, California.

The twist: All of the vibrant, often hilarious, and consistently subversive works in the "Charity by Numbers" auction are based on utterly familiar and creepily sentimental paint-by-number schemes.

A young Tom Sawyer-esque boy fishing off a dock with his dog at his side transforms into a weeping, charcoal-faced freak. His dog -- of course! -- sprouts a human skull topped by a crown. (Thanks, Fred Stonehouse.)

Tiffany Liu populates a familiar country scene (red barn, check; gentle winter snow, check) with a series of disturbingly sweet creatures -- including a creepy penguin in a tree, and bikini-clad girls diving into an icy pond.

In David Hochbaum's piece, an enormous square-rigged vessel is accosted by a giant octopus.

A posing poodle gets a pair of shades, a K-Fed medallion and a hat that declares the wearer "White Trash," courtesy of Jason Maloney.

Hey, if the collar fits …

Visit the Helford Gallery site for more from one of the trippiest art tours imaginable. Auction proceeds will benefit The Alliance for Children's Rights.

-- LIZ McDANIEL

There are two kinds of people in the world -- those who grow misty and get a faraway look in their eye in the presence of genuinely fine nautical paintings, and those who don't.

If you're one of the latter, we're finished here.

If, however, you can't get enough of oil paintings of clipper ships racing through white-capped seas, or of sloops fighting current and wind as ruinous lee shores loom just at the canvas's edge, you're in luck. Bonham's on New Bond Street in London is offering scores of 18th, 19th, and 20th century marine paintings for auction on February 27, including Antonio Nicolo Gasparo Jacobsen's intensely vivid Young America (£10,000 - 15,000), plus works by the likes of C.J. Sartorius, William Callow, and the Italian Eduardo Federico de Martino (appointed "Marine Painter-in-Ordinary" by Queen Victoria in 1895).

Compared to most other art forms, photography's history is a mere blink of the eye -- the British "father of modern photography," William Henry Fox Talbot, created the first modern negative, using paper soaked in silver chloride, around 180 years ago.

A relatively young art, then, but almost unfathomably vast, and the catalogue for the sale at Christie's on February 15 practically constitutes a comprehensive text. From the iconic expanse of the simultaneously ancient and new Western frontier captured by Edward S. Curtis, to the impeccably styled, shimmering scenarios created by David LaChapelle, to the sharp, unfussy portraits by Martin Schoeller (Angelina Jolie, above) every lot is a history lesson captured frame by frame.

Below are a few highlights:

CECIL BEATON (1904-1980), Mick Jagger, c. 1969

EDWARD S. CURTIS (1868-1952) , Selected images from North American Indian, 1905-06

JOHN SWANNELL (b. 1946), Fine Lines, 1997

Bid on this phone and other items in the Men's Vogue charity auction, hosted by iGavel.com. Auction ends at noon (ET) on Monday, February 12.

There are only 997 individually numbered Ascent Motorsport Limited Edition phones available in the world. This is one of them. Created for those who thrive on exclusivity and as a celebration of Vertu's participation in the Porsche Michelin Supercup and Porsche Infineon Carrera Cup, the Ascent might just be the most advanced (and toughest) phone on the market.

Crafted from an alloy stronger than titanium, each handset is inlaid with carbon fibre worthy of the Team Vertu Supercup car and boasts a Bluetooth and Tri-band "engine" encased in a shock-mounted suspension.

Best of all, the opening bid in the Men's Vogue charity auction is a mere $2,000. Sounds like a lot of money, right?

Well, yeah, it is. But considering the Ascent Motorsport retails for closer to $6,000, it might be considered a steal -- if the money wasn't going to such a great cause.

The back view of the Ascent Motorsport

A positively amazing trove of photographs, including shots by Man Ray (his Solarized Nude with Flowers in Her Hair, c. 1933, at left), William Klein, Bill Brandt, Mapplethorpe, and more will be up for bid at Christie's on February 14.

The collection comes from the estate of Thomas Solley, former director of the Indiana University Art Museum who died in April 2006 at his home in Switzerland.

Photos at auction range from Klein's timeless Woman & Cigarette Holder, Waldorf, N.Y., (1955), estimated to pull in up to $3,500, to Irving Penn's Summer Sleep (one of 29 known prints) with an estimate of $25,000 to $35,000.

W. Eugene Smith, Saipan, 1944

Robert Mapplethorpe, Lisa Lyon, 1980

Bid on these and other items in the Men's Vogue charity auction, hosted by iGavel.com.

In the early 1980s, more than a century after the medicine ball's invention, Lineaus Hooper Lorette, then a tax accountant for the Catholic Archdiocese of Austin, wrecked his knees running. Seeking out a more joint-friendly regimen, he started throwing around an old medicine ball at his local YMCA, and revived a series of throwing and catching exercises that were once performed by strapping men with waxed mustaches and suspender singlets. Fellow ex-joggers got interested but failed to find medicine balls of their own, so Lorette decided to make some himself. "All accountants want to do something honest for a living," explains Lorette, who, as a self-anointed "collapsed Catholic," was named after a saint: Pope Linus.

Since 1986 the Lineaus Athletic Company has produced 1,200 balls out of chrome-tanned glove leather, double-stitched with polyester and filled with kapok (a bean-seed fiber) and strands left over from thread manufacturing, which renders them heavy and virtually immortal. Each ball is stamped LINEAUS and logged in a book with information on who owns it (Mick Jagger, the New York Giants).

Lineaus medicine balls come in two different weights and dimensions tailored to men and women. The company also makes shoulder-straining football, a heavy baseball, and a punching bag. The football weighs 22 ounces--a regular game ball weighs 14 to 15--and according to Lorette, the extra ounces result in a projectile that's "easy to catch and comes down quickly, so you will be able to run under a pass and feel fleet of foot."

Twenty years ago Harvard's strength coach purchased a single Lineaus ball. A decade later he encountered Lorette at a sports equipment convention and told him: "Your manufacturing strategy's flawed because the balls last too long! Ours is as good as the day we bought it, and we don't need another." As Lorette, who crafts each ball by hand, puts it, "They last so long they'll end up as items in wills."