• to provide practical estate planning advice to all artists, especially those living with HIV/AIDS
• to document and offset the immense loss wrought by AIDS in all artistic disciplines
• to preserve the cultural legacy of the AIDS crisis so that future generations can enjoy, study and engage artworks as aesthetic achievements and historical documents

history

The Alliance for the Arts initiated the Estate Project in 1991 to respond to the unprecedented impact of AIDS on American culture. Much of our work focuses on the preservation of artworks and the creation of archives comprised of visual artworks, films, videos, musical scores, dances and manuscripts, as well as developing research tools and finding aids for dispersed collections. The Estate Project has built a groundbreaking website that allows the general public, curators and historians access to this material. In addition, the website carries our award-winning publications on estate planning for artists, Future Safe and A Life in Dance. The Estate Project has worked with major institutions such as the New York Public Library, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Getty Trust, the Fales Library of New York University, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, and the Parsons School of Design to preserve artworks and present them to the public.

future

In spite of recent advances in AIDS treatments, the work of the Estate Project is not over. As AIDS becomes less visible as an issue in American life, our mission in fact becomes more urgent as we combat historical amnesia and cultural complacency. The future year promises heightened activity as we:

• Complete existing preservation and research projects in film, video, and music.
• Begin work on a preservation initiative in theater.
• Expand our survey of the effects of HIV/AIDS on dance communities beyond New York City and Los Angeles.
• Integrate these collections and resources into the National Registry of Artists with AIDS, a comprehensive finding aid for artists and scholars to study the cultural legacy of the AIDS crisis in all disciplines and to locate original material.