Dia:Beacon, Riggio Galleries, Beacon, NY
Modern Art collection in an old packing factory
(Photos/words © urban75, Nov 2005, updated Sept 2006)

Opened in May 2003, Dia:Beacon houses a permanent collection of major works of art from the 1960s to the present.

The work is exhibited in the old Nabisco box-packing factory on the banks of the Hudson River in Beacon, offering nearly 300,000-square-feet of space in a classic example of 1929 industrial architecture.


Approaching the gallery.

Dia:Beacon is close to Beacon train station, which is served by Metro-North Railroad trains from Grand Central Terminal and Poughkeepsie. Trains run hourly in either direction during museum operating hours, and it's a lovely trip up from New York City!


Michael Heizer's 'North, East, South, West' installation, which involves four ruddy great holes in the ground. We liked this piece.






Basement view.


This multi-screen video piece by Bruce Nauman tracked the nocturnal activities of mice, moths, and other late-night shuffling creatures.


Walter De Maria's 'The Equal Area Series.'

Apparently, these "pose the opposition of the circle and the square—the perfect curve versus the perfect rectangle—perhaps the most essential of geometric contrasts. The pairing of the circle and the square suggests a binary opposition—like male and female, 0 and 1, black and white, or yin and yang-that underlies the essence of our world-procreation, counting and computing, light and visibility, and so on."




These broad spans between supporting columns offer vast open spaces, affording over 34,000 square feet of skylights.

The building has now been listed on the National Register of Historic Places.


The gallery also featured work by Andy Warhol, Max Neuhaus, Robert Irwin, Joseph Beuys, John Chamberlain and Dan Flavin, whose fluorescent tube installation can be seen above.


Richard Serra's vast, metal circular sculptures invite you to wander in and observe the shifting light.

I was enjoying roaming into the quiet, dark depths until a mass invasion of a-hollerin' schoolkids rather spoiled the contemplative mood.