Founded 2014 | Location New York City | |
Key people Jennifer Cohen, Executive Director |
POBA is a non-profit, online arts community, launched in July, 2014 by The James Kirk Bernard Foundation (named after a young artist who died in 2010).
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Description
POBA's mission is to preserve, display, and provide resources for research, archiving, and appraising the creative legacies of 20th and 21st century artists who either died without their legacy being fully recognized, were not recognized for a specific medium, or whose work is not readily accessible elsewhere.
POBA offers membership to anyone who owns the rights to a deceased artist's legacy. Members can create portfolios on behalf of that artist to show the works in the appropriate digital format, for public display and private storage.
The name "POBA" derives from the Hindi word "phowa", which means the transformation of consciousness at death.
Partners
POBA has partnered with such leading institutions and galleries as the American Ballet Theater and The Berta Walker Gallery, and has partnerships with the Provincetown Art Association and Museum and Paddle8.
In January 2016, POBA launched Art Lives, an online project to digitize, curate, and display the work of artists of all genres lost to AIDS in the 1970s and 1980s, partnering with DIFFA (Design Industries Foundation Fighting AIDS), LifeBeat (Music Fights AIDS) and Visual AIDS for the initial portfolios. Featured artists include Sylvester (singer), Mel Cheren, artist and creator of West End Records, and Patrick Kelly (fashion designer).
Artists
Founding artists' legacies include: