The weekend before my birthday I went to Dia Beacon & it was the first museum I had been to all year (Thanks Covid!). While I had visited before, being away from art and museums made this visit all the more special. The museum sits in the charming town of Beacon and always turns into a day trip situation for me.

Dia Beacon is the museum for the Dia Art Foundation's collection of art from the 1960s to the present and is one of the 11 locations and sites they manage. The museum, which opened in 2003, is situated on the banks of the Hudson River in Beacon, New York. Dia Beacon's facility, the Riggio Galleries, is a former Nabisco box-printing facility that was renovated by Dia with artist Robert Irwin and architects Alan Koch, Lyn Rice, Galia Solomonoff, and Linda Taalman, then of OpenOffice.

Dia Beacon's expansive spaces are well suited to the needs of large-scale installations, paintings, and sculptures. In keeping with Dia's history of single-artist, site-related presentations, each gallery was designed specifically for the art it contains. This includes Andy Warhol's 1978–79 multipart work Shadows, displayed in a single installation measuring approximately 350 linear feet; selections from Dan Flavin's series of fluorescent light Monuments to V. Tatlin (1964–81); Richard Serra's monumental steel sculptures, Torqued Ellipses; and Michael Heizer's North, East, South, West (1967/2002). The ideal viewing conditions created by reflected north light from more than 34,000 square feet (3,200 m2) of skylights are especially evident in the galleries devoted to the paintings of On Kawara, Agnes Martin, Blinky Palermo, and Robert Ryman.

Below are some pictures of my little art day. Some of the artists behind the work below are as follows: Richard Serra, Robert Smithson, Michael Heizer, Marian Zazeela, Andy Warhol, Lee Ufan, Dorothea Rockburne, Dan Flavin & Carl Craig. Here’s some info on current and upcoming exhibits.

If you’re in Beacon, also check out…

1. Hudson Beach Glass

2. The Round House 

3. The Beacon Theatre 

4. Notions-N-Potions

5. Beacon Creamery

*Lots to do, above are just my top 5. Bannerman Castle is still on my list!