Thanks to the phenomenal support of our friends in the contemporary art community, TWO x TWO for AIDS and Art’s annual benefit gala dinner and art auction raised over $130 million in its 25-year history in support of amfAR’s AIDS research initiatives and the DMA’s contemporary art acquisition program.
amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research, is dedicated to ending the global AIDS epidemic through innovative research. Since its founding in 1985, amfAR has accelerated the pace of HIV/AIDS research and contributed to numerous breakthroughs that are extending and saving lives around the world. Today, amfAR is a leader in the search for a cure for HIV and is one of the largest funders of cure research among philanthropic organizations worldwide. Informed by thorough research and analysis, amfAR is also a highly respected advocate of rational and compassionate AIDS-related public policy. amfAR’s impact includes:
- amfAR-funded research studies have contributed to the development of four of the six primary classes of anti-HIV drugs (protease inhibitors, entry inhibitors, CCR5 blockers, and integrase inhibitors) that are helping people with HIV/AIDS live longer, healthier lives.
- amfAR pioneered the research that led to the use of drugs to prevent mother-to-child HIV transmission, which has resulted in the virtual elimination of such transmission in many parts of the world.
- Research supported by amfAR led to the identification of the critical role of the cell protein CCR5 in HIV infection. Beginning with Timothy Brown—the “Berlin Patient”—in 2008, this pivotal finding has played a central part in most of the seven known cases of a cure to date.
- In 2019 it was announced that amfAR researchers could find no trace of HIV in a stem cell transplant patient in London who had been off antiretroviral therapy for 18 months. The “London Patient”—Adam Castillejo—and then Marc Franke, the “Düsseldorf Patient,” were both part of amfAR’s ICISTEM research consortium, which enrolled 45 patients with cancer and HIV who have received or soon will receive stem cell transplants.
- In 2014, amfAR launched the Countdown to a Cure for AIDS, a five-year research initiative aimed at developing the scientific basis of a cure. Through the Countdown, amfAR awarded grants totaling more than $50 million to support research conducted by 300 scientists at 99 institutions in 16 countries.
- The results of a clinical trial conducted by researchers at the amfAR Institute for HIV Cure Research, a centerpiece of the Countdown to a Cure, were announced in 2023. The trial established proof of concept that combination immunotherapy may induce post-treatment control of HIV by altering facets of the virus or the immune response to it.
- In April 2020, amfAR established the amfAR Fund to Fight COVID-19 in order to respond to the novel coronavirus, awarding approximately $700,000 to researchers trying to answer vital questions at the intersection of HIV and COVID-19.
- amfAR grantee Dr. Drew Weissman of the University of Pennsylvania was awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on mRNA, which proved instrumental in the development of effective vaccines for Covid-19. As a principal investigator on a multi-year amfAR-funded study, Dr. Weissman is currently using mRNA technology to target the HIV reservoir, the main barrier to a cure.
- Launched in 2001, amfAR’s Bangkok-based TREAT Asia program is a network of hospitals, clinics, and research institutions working with civil society to ensure the safe and effective delivery of HIV/AIDS treatments across Asia and the Pacific. Encompassing 21 adult and 21 pediatric sites and orphan support programs in 12 countries, TREAT Asia is widely regarded as a model of regional collaboration on HIV/AIDS.
- Through its Andelson Office of Public Policy, established in 1991, amfAR has worked with members of Congress to design and secure the passage of landmark AIDS-related legislation that has expanded access to treatment, care, and prevention, and has increased federal funding for AIDS research.
- The public policy office has created a suite of free interactive databases that provide researchers, policy makers, and others with vital information about the epidemic in the U.S., global HIV programming/funding, COVID-19, key populations, and the opioid epidemic.
- Since its founding in 1985, amfAR has raised more than $900 million in support of its programs and has awarded more than 3,800 grants to research teams worldwide.
Visit amfar.org.
The Dallas Museum of Art, established in 1903, is among the 10 largest art museums in the country. With a free general admission policy and community outreach efforts, the DMA is distinguished by its commitment to research, innovation, and public engagement. At the heart of the Museum and its programs is its global collection, which encompasses 25,000 works and spans 5,000 years of history, representing a full range of world cultures. Located in the nation’s largest arts district, the Museum acts as a catalyst for community creativity, engaging people of all ages and backgrounds with a diverse spectrum of programming, from exhibitions and lectures to concerts, literary events, and dramatic and dance presentations. The DMA is an Open Access institution, allowing all works believed to be in the public domain to be freely available for downloading, sharing, repurposing, and remixing without restriction The DMA directs all proceeds from TWO x TWO to the TWO x TWO for AIDS and Art Fund.
- The transformative impact that the TWO x TWO initiative has had in shaping the quality and depth of the DMA’s contemporary holdings includes the acquisition of more than 375 artworks. Among them are significant paintings, sculpture, time-based media, photographs, drawings, and prints by the finest and most ambitious artists of our time, such as Frank Bowling, Walter De Maria, Julie Mehretu, Bruce Nauman, Laura Owens, Sigmar Polke, Jackson Pollock, Charles Ray, Gerhard Richter, Joan Semmel, Lorna Simpson, Alex da Corte, Glenn Ligon, and Jonas Wood.
The Dallas Museum of Art made history in 2013 with its return to free general admission. Recent acclaimed special exhibitions made possible by TWO x TWO for AIDS and Art funds include:
Naudline Pierre: What Could Be Has Not Yet Appeared
Slip Zone: A New Look at Postwar Abstraction in the Americas and East Asia
Bosco Sodi: La fuerza del destino
Sandra Cinto: Landscape of a Lifetime
For a Dreamer of Houses
America Will Be!: Surveying the Contemporary Landscape
Jonas Wood
Minerva Cuevas: Fine Lands
Laura Owens
Truth: 24 frames per second
Yayoi Kusama: All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins
Carey Young: The New Architecture
Walter De Maria: Counterpoint
Nicolas Party: Pathway
Rebecca Warren: The Main Feeling
Jackson Pollock: Blind Spots
International Pop
NS Harsha: Sprouts reach in to reach out
Frank Bowling: Map Paintings
Michaël Borremans: As sweet as it gets
Mirror Stage, Visualizing the Self after the Internet
Between Action and the Unknown: The Art of Kazuo Shiraga and Sadamasa Motonaga
Isa Genzken: Retrospective
Robert Smithson in Texas
Jim Hodges: Give more than you take
Cecily Brown: Themes and Variations
When you See Me: Visibility in Contemporary Art/History
Tiffany Chung: Rise Into the Atmosphere
He Said/She Said: Contemporary Women Artists Interject
Ja’Tovia Gary, I KNOW IT WAS THE BLOOD
Focus On: Rashid Johnson
Matthew Wong: REalm of Appearances
Movement: The Legacy of Kineticism
Guadalupe Rosales: Drifting on a Memory
- The Concentrations series began in 1981 as a part of the DMA’s commitment to showcase the work of underrepresented and emerging living artists. Through the series of project-based exhibitions, the Museum has proudly featured the work of over 50 artists, providing many of them their first US museum solo exhibition. For the past 20 years, TWO x TWO for AIDS and Art has provided support for these large scale installations by artists such as Doug Aitken, Karla Black, Matt Connors, Willie Doherty, Maureen Gallace, Charline von Heyl, Chosil Kil, Runo Lagomarsino, Shirin Neshat, Richard Patterson, Anri Sala, and Slavs and Tatars.
Visit DMA.org.