Art blooms in Beacon - Art World - Dia Art Foundation new gallery in Beacon, New York

Art in America, May, 2003 by Stephanie Cash, David Ebony

On May 18, the Dia Art Foundation opens its vast new facility in a converted printing plant on a 31acre site on the banks of the Hudson River [see "Front Page," May '99] in Beacon, N.Y. Located some 60 miles north of Manhattan, Dia:Beacon provides 240,000 square feet of gallery space for Dia's permanent collection, which includes works by such artists as Joseph Beuys, Louise Bourgeois, Walter De Maria, Dan Flavin, Michael Heizer, Donald Judd, Sol LeWitt, Agnes Martin, Bruce Nauman, Gerhard Richter, Richard Serra, Robert Smithson, Andy Warhol and Lawrence Weiner.

Artist Robert Irwin and the New York-based architectural and design firm OpenOffice worked together to preserve the factory's original character while transforming it into an art venue. Irwin, who created a garden for the Getty Center in L.A., also designed Dia:Beacon's surrounding landscape, which includes a grove of flowering trees. Originally built in 1929 by Nabisco, the factory was donated to Dia in 1999 by International Paper; the $25.5-million renovation took two years to complete. Annual attendance is expected to be 50,000-60,000. Funding for the new site came from various board members, the Lannan Foundation, and city, county and state sources. Long-term temporary shows will continue to be mounted at Dia's space in Manhattan, which will be renamed Dia:Ohelsea. That facility will be closed for one year, beginning in summer 2004, for renovations.

On May 24, another art event kicks off in Beacon and the surrounding area. "Watershed: The Hudson Valley Art Project," commissioned by the nonprofit arts organization Minetta Brook, is a show of new site-specific work scattered at 15 sites throughout the Hudson River Valley. The 10 artists, writers and filmmakers participating in the show are Lothar Baumgarten, Matthew Buckingham, Constance De Jong, Peter Hutton, Matts Leiderstam, Christian Philipp Muller, Lynne Tillman, George Trakas, James Welling and Pae White. Most works will be on view for two years, though those by Trakas and De Jong will be permanently installed. De Jong plans to incorporate stories from local residents into a sound piece that will be audible on park benches at Madam Brett Park in Beacon and in Bear Mountain State Park. For his piece, Beacon Point Project, Trakas has installed wooden decks, a dock area and granite stairways leading to the river on a 23-acre peninsula within walking distance of Dia: Beacon. For information on the Watershed project go to www. minettabrook.org.