What We Fund

The Helis Foundation is a Louisiana private foundation, established and funded by the William Helis Family.

The Art Funds of The Helis Foundation advance access to the arts for the community through contributions that sustain operations for, provide free admission to, and underwrite major exhibitions and projects of institutions within the Greater New Orleans area.

Explore The Helis Foundation’s major initiatives and special projects:

The Poydras Corridor Sculpture Exhibition

Presented by The Helis Foundation

The Poydras Corridor Sculpture Exhibition presented by The Helis Foundation was founded in 2013 as an initiative of non-profit organization, Sculpture for New Orleans, and has quickly become the South’s leading rotating public sculpture exhibition...

ArcAthens

Inaugural Residency Program

ARCAthens (Artist Residency Center Athens), is a new 501(c)(3) based in New York.  The Helis Foundation has joined ARCAthens as a Founding Patron in support of ARCAthens Pilot Program: Spring 2019.

“ARCAthens represents a unique opportunity for The Helis Foundation to honor the Helis family’s Greek heritage and their longstanding commitment to supporting the arts,” said David Kerstein, President of The Helis Foundation...

Louisiana Contemporary

Presented by The Helis Foundation

Louisiana Contemporary is an annual, state-wide, juried exhibition established in 2012 by the Ogden Museum of Southern Art to promote contemporary art practices in the state of Louisiana, provide exhibition space for the work of living artists and engage an audience that recognizes the vibrant visual culture of Louisiana and the role of New Orleans as a rising, international art center...

Solidary and Solitary: The Joyner/Giuffrida Collection

Presented by The Helis Foundation

Solidary and Solitary, drawn from the Joyner/Giuffrida collection, tells the history of art by African-American artists from the 1940s to the present moment. That story is a complicated one woven from the threads of debates about how to represent blackness; social struggle and change; and migrations and diasporas, particularly in relation to Africa, a recent area of expansion for the collection...

WWNO Arts & Culture Coverage

Underwritten by The Helis Foundation

New Orleans Public Radio broadcasts local and NPR news, plus cultural entertainment on WWNO 89.9 FM. Since 2009, the station has steadily increased local news reporting to complement the national and international news from NPR...

Gallier Hall Art Restoration

New Orleans Tricentennial

The City of New Orleans will celebrate the 300th Anniversary of its founding in 2018. In celebration of the 1918 Bicentennial, the city undertook a full renovation of St. Louis Cathedral. In keeping with this tradition of large scale legacy projects at centennial milestones, Mayor Mitch Landrieu has proposed the full restoration and preservation of historic Gallier Hall in advance of 2018...