Sotheby's has opened an online benefit auction in support of LA ESCUELA___, the artist-run platform that links artistic research, education and collective practice across Latin America, the Caribbean and their diasporas, staged inside the house's Contemporary Discoveries sale, with bidding open from 1 to 8 October 2026 and highlights on public view from 2 to 7 October at the company's New York headquarters in the Breuer building on Madison Avenue. It is the first time Sotheby's has mounted a benefit auction for the platform. The sale brings together work by fourteen artists woven into the platform's teaching and research programmes. They include the Uruguayan-born conceptualist Luis Camnitzer, the late Mexican master Rufino Tamayo, and Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe, the Yanomami artist from the Venezuelan Amazon whose drawings form part of the platform's visual identity; his canvas of a leafless tree carries an estimate of 15,000 to 25,000 dollars. The roster also lists Miguel Braceli, Simon Vega, Seba Calfuqueo, Lizania Cruz, Marilyn Boror Bor, Diana Lopez, John Rivas, Esvin Alarcon Lam, Constanza Alarcon Tennen, Dulce Gomez and Luis Romero, with additional pieces drawn from the Coleccion Patricia Phelps de Cisneros. LA ESCUELA___ began in 2021 from a reflection by its artistic director and co-founder Miguel Braceli on how art education might engage social realities more directly. Developed with the Siemens Stiftung, it was conceived as a school without walls rather than a fixed campus. Since 2022 it has organised more than 45 projects across 13 countries, engaging over 6,000 participants and collaborating with more than 350 artists and thinkers, and it maintains an open-access library of essays, interviews and teaching materials. Its first exhibition project in the United States was presented at MoMA PS1's Homeroom between November 2025 and February 2026. Proceeds will go to La Escuela, Inc., the platform's New York-based nonprofit, to sustain its programmes across the Americas in 2027. The auction was made possible by donations from the participating artists and eight galleries, among them Alexander Gray, Proxyco and Nina Johnson Gallery, extending the collaborative ethos that Sotheby's says has shaped the project from its beginnings.