Dia:Beacon: 10th Anniversary Celebration
Starting May 18, 2013
Dia:Beacon
3 Beekman Street
Beacon, NY 12508
Community Free Day on May 18 will feature a public reading of On Kawara’s One Million Years, opening of Dia:Beacon’s new presentation of works by Alighiero e Boetti, a program for children and families and free admission for all.
Ten years after Dia:Beacon opened its doors, Dia Art Foundation will inaugurate an anniversary celebration encompassing a yearlong schedule of exhibitions, programs, and events, beginning with Community Free Day on May 18, 2013.
Throughout the day, visitors will be offered free admission to Dia:Beacon’s 22 galleries dedicated to the landmark work of artists including Dan Flavin, Donald Judd, Agnes Martin, Richard Serra, and Andy Warhol. A new collection room dedicated to the works of Alighiero e Boetti will open that day. Other free events will include a public reading of On Kawara’s One Million Years and a multimedia program for children and families.
Philippe Vergne, Director of Dia Art Foundation, said, “With the opening of Dia:Beacon in 2003, we became a different institution. Dia:Beacon, a collection of collections, offered a new way to present—in depth and in time. The current presentation of works by Alighiero e Boetti and the reading of On Kawara’s One Million Years are a tribute to Dia’s history and a celebration of the present. We thank the Board and leadership for their generous contributions over the past decade and we look forward to continuing to work together to inspire audiences for years to come.”
To celebrate the 10th anniversary, the Community Free Day on May 18 will include a public reading of On Kawara’s One Million Years. This presentation will be the first live reading of One Million Years at Dia:Beacon. Conceived in 1969, the work was first presented as a performance piece in 1993 at Dia Center for the Arts, with participants reading aloud dates going into the past and the future.
A new installation of embroidered works and large-scale works on paper by Alighiero e Boetti will open at Dia:Beacon on May 18, 2013, and remain on view through February 17, 2014. Selected from Dia’s collection, the works include Ammazzare il Tempo (1978), Mappa (1972), Opera Postale (1980), Untitled (January–December) (1986), and the groundbreaking Untitled (Victoria Boogie Woogie) (1972), consisting of 5,040 envelopes the artist mailed to himself in Turin from different cities in Italy.
Also on May 18, artist Melissa McGill will collaborate with guest musicians to lead a program for children and families, exploring the relationship of mark-making and sound while considering works of art at Dia:Beacon, including Time Piece Beacon (2005) by Max Neuhaus.
Susan Sayre Batton, Managing Director of Dia:Beacon, said, “We are thrilled that over the past decade, Dia:Beacon has become an integral part of the local community and the region of the Hudson Valley. Together with our colleagues at other institutions, our patrons, and our neighbors, we will continue to build Beacon and the region’s reputation as a cultural destination.”
Dia:Beacon’s 10th anniversary celebration will continue into spring 2014 with more Community Free Days, Gallery Talks, and other special events. From May to August 2013, highlights will include Mitch McEwen on Robert Irwin (June 8, 2013); Community Free Day presented in collaboration with Glynwood, and Frances Richard on Louise Lawler (July 13, 2013); and Anastasia Aukeman on Bernd and Hilla Becher (August 10, 2013).
Dia:Beacon’s 10th Anniversary public programming is made possible with major support from New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. Dia’s Community Free Days also receive generous support from AT&T and the Dyson Foundation.
Dia:Beacon
In May 2003, Dia Art Foundation opened Dia:Beacon, unveiling its remarkable collection of art from the 1960s to the present. In keeping with Dia’s history of single-artist presentations, each gallery of the former Nabisco box printing factory was designed to present the work of one artist in depth. A decade later, Dia:Beacon continues to support Dia’s mission through the presentation and scholarship of the collection as well as special exhibitions, performances, new commissions, and education programs.
Dia Art Foundation
Dia Art Foundation, founded in 1974, is committed to initiating, supporting, presenting, and preserving extraordinary art projects. Dia:Beacon opened in May 2003 in Beacon, New York. Dia also maintains several long-term, site-specific projects, including Walter De Maria’s The New York Earth Room (1977) and The Broken Kilometer (1979), Max Neuhaus’s Times Square (1977), Joseph Beuys’s 7000 Oaks (1988), and Dan Flavin’s untitled (1996), all in Manhattan; the Dan Flavin Art Institute in Bridgehampton, New York; De Maria’s The Vertical Earth Kilometer (1977) in Kassel, Germany; Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty (1970) in the Great Salt Lake, Utah; and De Maria’s The Lightning Field (1977) in Quemado, New Mexico.
Dia currently presents temporary installations, artist lectures, and readings on West 22nd Street in the Chelsea section of New York City, the neighborhood it helped pioneer. Plans for a new project space are underway.
For more information please visit www.diaart.org or contact press [at] diaart.org / 212 293 5518.