It is with profound sadness that we mourn the passing of Archibald Gillies (Arch), former President of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and a devoted steward of its mission. Arch’s leadership, vision, and dedication to artists shaped the Foundation during a pivotal period and helped to establish its enduring impact.
From 1990 to 2001, Arch led the Foundation with integrity and dedication, furthering Andy Warhol’s legacy by setting forth the organization’s mission to advance the visual arts. Under his leadership, the Foundation championed creative experimentation and innovation and provided support to multiple generations of artists and cultural institutions.
After the culture wars of the 1990s, Arch believed that artistic freedom is critical to our democracy and established Creative Capital Foundation as an independent nonprofit organization expressly to defend freedom of expression by funding individual artists creating new work.
On behalf of the entire Warhol Foundation community, we extend our heartfelt condolences to Arch’s family, friends, and all those who were inspired by his life and work. We honor his legacy with gratitude and will continue to carry forward the mission he served so faithfully.
“The terrific range of project proposals we receive each year speaks to the mobile and porous disciplinary boundaries of contemporary art practice, and to the rich and inventive ways writers approach art today. They are alert to the urgent need to expand the conventions of art history and criticism with ideas from other discourses, such as black studies, transnational and diaspora studies, gender and women’s studies, and LGBT studies. The work of lesser known and overlooked artists and art communities continues to be mined, with writers articulating new ways to counter the striking imbalances of race, class and gender that continue to affect the arts and the culture industry.”