Artists Band Together and Raise Over $800,000 for Homeless LGBTQ+ Youth

On 28 October, David Zwirner will open ‘Toward the Light’, a group exhibition organized by Stephen Truax to benefit the Ali Forney Center (AFC), the US’s largest organization dedicated to homeless LGBTQ+ youth. As LGBTQ+ Americans face escalating political hostility and the loss of significant federal funding for LGBTQ+-related programmes, this, the third annual contemporary art sale for AFC, will raise critical funds. The project shows LGBTQ+ youth that art can be a means of survival. In the following conversation, Zachary Cohen, the AFC’s deputy executive director of development, and Stephen Truax, an artist and art adviser, reflect on the organization’s mission, the art world’s role and how community can transform urgency into action.

Terence Trouillot Let’s start from the beginning. Zach, can you tell me a little bit about the history of the Ali Forney Center?

Zachary Cohen The Ali Forney Center was founded in 2002 by Carl Siciliano in memory of Ali Forney, a queer young person living on the streets of New York whom he knew personally. Ali was tragically murdered in 1997, and Carl decided that this injustice couldn’t continue: Black and queer kids were being killed, and nobody seemed to care. Carl was a monk here in New York, and he began AFC with just six camp beds in a church basement. It was a place for queer young people to have a safe place to sleep from 8pm to 8am. Twenty-three years later, we’ve grown into a multifaceted agency that serves around 2,200 queer youth annually.

TT Stephen, I’d love to hear how you first got involved with AFC.

Stephen Truax In 2022, the painter Doron Langberg, who is a close personal friend, came up with the idea of creating a selling exhibition to benefit the AFC, inviting artists including Felipe Baeza, Hernan Bas, Anthony Cudahy, Nash Glynn, Jenna Gribbon and Salman Toor to contribute works alongside Doron’s own. The sale took place at Sotheby’s in 2023 and raised over $400,000; on behalf of a client, I made the winning bid on the Toor painting. Soon after, Doron, Zach and I started talking about how we could expand the effort, and they asked if I would organize next year’s sale. Last year, Katherine Bradford, Chris Martin, Justin Liam O’Brien, Ilana Savdie and Salman Toor – and of course Doron – donated works, and I organized the sale, again at Sotheby’s. The works sold for over $370,000, including fees.

TT What did that kind of support mean for AFC at that point?

ZC Historically, most of our funding came from government sources, but these are increasingly unreliable. Today, our $25 million budget is split between public and private sources, with each contributing about half. This year alone, we’ve fallen $400,000 short of projections from just our corporate partners. It has been extraordinary to see Doron and Stephen come forward with this new annual art sale. It translates literally into young people having a safe place to stay and food on the table.

TT Stephen, can you talk a little about this year’s benefit at David Zwirner and how that partnership came together?

ST David Zwirner has been a phenomenal partner for this project. It’s always been a dream of mine to do an exhibition with the gallery, and I’m especially grateful to Greg Lulay and Veronique Ansorge who brought this project to life. The whole gallery team has been working overtime to make this happen. David himself is very enthusiastic about it.

Beyond supporting the incredible work AFC does, this exhibition is also a chance for the participating artists to present their work at one of the most prestigious galleries in the world. We invited artists with strong markets, to avoid being another ‘benefit exhibition fire sale’, and offered up to 50 percent of the proceeds to the artists if they needed it. Over two-thirds of the 38 artists donated their work outright. The rest need their share in order to keep the lights on. It’s important that this effort be a win–win for AFC, the gallery and the artists.

TT Zach, can you give us some insight into what AFC does on a day-to-day basis?

ZC Our state-of-the-art drop-in centre in Midtown never closes – not for Christmas, not for a hurricane, not even during the pandemic. We provide four meals a day, medical and mental health services and education and career readiness programmes. AFC also offers both emergency and transitional housing. It’s the largest programme of its kind in the world. Our model has inspired similar initiatives around the country and across the globe. We’ve partnered with organizations in El Salvador, Poland, Texas and other locations, helping them adopt our framework. Just this year, we co-hosted a conference in Warsaw. The goal is that queer youth don’t have to travel to find safety – support should exist where they are.

TT It feels like there’s a particular urgency for support like yours right now, given the political climate here in the US – especially regarding the trans community. How has that affected your work and your thinking?

ST The current administration has launched public attacks on queer people across the country. It’s a campaign designed to overwhelm us and make us feel powerless. ‘Toward the Light’ offers a call to action in opposition to the relentless news cycle. It’s my hope that this project can empower us and give us a sense of agency when they’re trying to take it away from us.

ZC Yes, for us, it’s concrete: a young person has a bed tonight because of this work. ‘Toward the Light’ is going to have a huge impact on the work we do. But AFC can’t keep up with the demand for our services – we saw a 19 percent increase in new clients in 2024. We expect this number to jump in 2025: we’re on track to see a 26 percent increase. Even as we add 40 new beds this year, it’s a drop in the bucket. These are young people aged 16 to 25 who are forced out of their homes by homophobia or transphobia. Instead of simple coming-of-age stories, they face traumatic experiences and literally have to fight for their survival.

TT Could you share maybe one story that shows the role art has played at AFC?

ZC One that has stayed with me is a young man from the South. His religious family forced him into ‘reparative’ therapy. When he came out at 15, his family kicked him out of the house. He resisted talking therapy when he arrived at AFC because of the trauma of what he experienced back home. We had a breakthrough with him when he joined an art therapy group. It was something he found joyful. He eventually changed his name to Picasso, crediting art with saving his life. That’s what makes it so powerful to have artists supporting our mission. It tells our youth they are worthy of love and community.

TT Looking ahead, how do you see the future of this project?

ST Our goal is to raise over $350,000 for AFC this year with David Zwirner. We’ll continue our efforts next year to combat the ongoing funding crisis. Right now, I want to celebrate the generosity of the artists who donated their work to this exhibition, and David Zwirner for putting the full strength of the gallery behind the project.

TT Why should people care right now?

ZC Trans people and people of colour are being directly targeted with unprecedented discriminatory legislation and nationwide media attention. Our clients belong to extreme minorities of the US population: almost 90 percent of our clients are people of colour, and some 40 percent identify as gender nonconforming. Supporting AFC means telling LGBTQ+ young people and people of colour that their lives matter. In a moment when so much feels uncertain, this work is about creating certainty: shelter, meals and dignity for our kids.

‘Toward the Light: Artists for the Ali Forney Center’ will be on view at David Zwirner, New York, 28 October–1 November.