Andy Warhol Foundation
in 2001, Wachs resigned his council seat and moved to New York City in order to serve as president of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Wachs is nominally the chairman of the Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board. Wachs's salary at the charity is over $350,000 per year, which does not include generous expenses and a pension plan of approximately 20%. This is nearly four times the average salary for such a position.
In 2010, Wachs -in his Warhol foundation role- protested the removal of a David Wojnarowicz piece from the "Hide/Seek" exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery. The foundation had supported the exhibition with a $100,000 grant. Wachs wrote to the head of the Smithsonian Institution (NPG's parent organization), G. Wayne Clough, on behalf of the foundation’s unanimous board with the "demand that the Smithsonian restore the work ... to the exhibition or the foundation would reject any future grant requests." Wachs' letter said in part "For the arts to flourish, the arts must be free, and the decision to censor this important work is in stark opposition to our mission to defend freedom of expression wherever and whenever it is under attack.” There were no signs of reinstatement of the Wojnarowicz piece by the NPG.
Read more about this topic: Joel Wachs, Art Interest
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