DIA:Beacon - Home to contempoary art

Torqued Ellipses by Richard Serra When people think of museums in New York, the city is what usually comes to mind. But sixty-five miles north of the city, in the town of Beacon NY, is one of the nation’s top museums of contemporary art - DIA:Beacon . The Dia Foundation was founded in 1974, with the mission of “advancing, realizing, and preserving the vision of artists by commissioning projects, organizing exhibitions, and realizing site-specific works” (DIA mission statement). Its early projects included The Lightning Field (1977) and The Broken Kilometer (1979) both by Walter de Maria . In 1987, they opened their first gallery in New York City on West 22nd street, which served as their primary exhibition space. In 2003 DIA:Beacon opened. This museum is now the home of DIA’s permanent collection. Beacon, New York, was founded in the early 1800’s, as a grist mill town on the shore of the Hudson River, near the mouth of Fishkill Creek. By the middle of the 19th century, the are...