Dia’s 2020 exhibition highlights across its multiple sites and locations include the 50th anniversary of Robert Smithson’s iconic Spiral Jetty (1970), four exhibitions and commissions at Dia Beacon by Carl Craig, Joan Jonas, Mario Merz, and Keith Sonnier, a presentation at Dia Bridgehampton of new work by Jill Magid, and the release of a new Artist Web Project by Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme.
The newly expanded and renovated Dia Chelsea opens September 19, 2020, with an exhibition by Lucy Raven, who has been working with Dia for over three years on several large-scale installations.
The first six months of public programming at Dia include a series of conversations and talks at Dia Beacon and Dia Bridgehampton and three Artists on Artists lectures at the Emily Harvey Foundation in New York City this spring while renovation continues at Dia Chelsea.
Dia Beacon
3 Beekman Street, Beacon, New York
Carl Craig
March 6–September 7, 2020
Detroit-based techno DJ and producer Carl Craig presents Party/After-Party (2020), a commissioned sound installation at Dia Beacon in dialogue with the unique architecture of the space. Anchored to the site’s manufacturing history as a former Nabisco packaging factory, the work recalls the techno tradition of reclaiming industrial spaces for radical experimentation. Deeply personal, Party/After-Party accesses both the euphoria of the club environment and the isolation that follows this collective experience.
Mario Merz
Opening May 10, 2020
This long-term exhibition of work by Italian artist Mario Merz features Dia’s recent acquisitions and historical loans from collections in the United States and the Fondazione Merz in Turin. Spanning the mid-1960s through the mid-1980s, the exhibition explores the interdependence of individuals, society, and the natural environment through Merz’s highly imaginative iconography and unique material sensibility.
Keith Sonnier
Opening July 31, 2020
Highlighting Keith Sonnier’s experiments across media, this long-term presentation brings together a selection of recently acquired works from the late 1960s and early 1970s. During this period, Sonnier explored what he termed “psychologically loaded” industrial materials—those with strong connotations to their non-art usages.
Joan Jonas
Opening November 6, 2020
This exhibition features three works from Dia’s collection by Joan Jonas. The presentation in the lower-level galleries at Dia Beacon unites Jonas’s large-scale multimedia installation The Shape, the Scent, the Feel of Things (2004), which was commissioned as a performance for Dia in 2005–06, with two recently acquired early works, Stage Sets and After Mirage (Cones/May Windows) (both 1976).
Dia Talks
Saturday, February 8, 2020, 11:30am
Mel Bochner in Conversation with Alexis Lowry and James Meyer
Saturday, February 8, 2020, 2pm
Barry Le Va in Conversation with James Meyer
Saturday, April 11, 2020, 2pm
A Conversation with Anna Lovatt on Drawing in the 1960s
Dia Chelsea
537 West 22nd Street, New York City
Lucy Raven
September 19, 2020–March 6, 2021
Dia Chelsea reopens with an exhibition of newly commissioned works by American artist Lucy Raven. Following a three-year engagement with Dia, the artist presents a kinetic light sculpture occupying the entirety of the former Alcamo marble-cutting factory on West 22nd Street in New York City. In an adjacent gallery, she exhibits a film shot over two years at a concrete plant in Bellevue, Idaho. Incorporating moving images, photography, sculpture, and sound, her immersive installations address issues of labor, technology, and the hidden mechanisms of power.
Dia Bridgehampton
23 Corwith Avenue, Bridgehampton, New York
Jill Magid
Opening June 27, 2020–May 30, 2021
A yearlong exhibition of new work by Conceptual artist Jill Magid opens in June at Dia Bridgehampton. The exhibition features eleven screenprints from the series Homage CMYK (2019), a continuation of her multimedia project on Mexican architect Luis Barragán. Installed in the exhibition space, the shimmering surfaces of Homage CMYK interrogate questions of authorship, influence, and how an object changes in relation to its context over time.
Dia Talks
Sunday, March 8, 2020, 12 and 2pm
Artist Walk-Through with Jacqueline Humphries
Dia Art Foundation at the Emily Harvey Foundation
Emily Harvey Foundation, 537 Broadway #2, New York City
While Dia Chelsea undergoes renovation for the first half of 2020, Dia’s public programming in New York City will take place at the Emily Harvey Foundation. Dia Chelsea reopens September 19, 2020.
Artists on Artists Lecture Series
Tuesday, April 21, 2020, 6:30pm
Olga Balema on Maria Nordman
Tuesday, May 12, 2020, 6:30pm
A.L. Steiner on Jenny Holzer
Tuesday, June 2, 2020, 6:30pm
Julia Phillips on Louise Bourgeois
Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty, 1970
Great Salt Lake, Utah
Located at Rozel Point peninsula on the northeastern shore of the Great Salt Lake, Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty was constructed in April 1970. The iconic artwork has been under the stewardship of Dia since 1999. Throughout 2020, Dia celebrates the 50th anniversary of Spiral Jetty. Programs include a series of educational initiatives that send young people to the site to complete research projects, the official release of new photography of the work (last documented over a decade ago), a book drawn from artists’ lectures on Smithson’s practice (that will be released in April 2020), and a robust public program to be announced.
Artist Web Projects
Inaugurated in 1995, Dia’s series of Artist Web Projects is the longest-running program of this kind in the United States, commissioning artists to create original projects for the internet.
Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme
September 2020
Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme present a new online work as part of Dia’s long-standing series of Artist Web Projects. May amnesia never kiss us on the mouth (2020) revolves around the artists’ archived collection of online recordings, which feature anonymous figures in Palestine, Iraq, and Syria performing folkloric song, music, and dance. This material is layered with original footage by the artists that captures performances by a younger generation of dancers and musicians from the region and aims to assemble a body of knowledge in defiance of its continuous digital erasure.
Dia Art Foundation
Taking its name from the Greek word meaning “through,” Dia was established in 1974 with the mission to serve as a conduit for artists to realize ambitious new projects, unmediated by overt interpretation and uncurbed by the limitations of more traditional museums and galleries. In addition to Dia Beacon, Dia Bridgehampton, and Dia Chelsea, Dia maintains and operates a constellation of commissions, long-term installations, site-specific projects, and Land art, nationally and internationally. As part of a strategic and comprehensive plan to further advance its mission, program, and ongoing operations, Dia is currently upgrading and expanding its principal programming spaces of Dia Chelsea and Dia Beacon, and will open a new space, Dia SoHo, in 2022.
Video or audio files of past public programs are available on Dia’s website in the Watch & Listen section.
Dates are subject to change. Please confirm information with the press office prior to publication. For additional information or materials, call T 212 293 5518, email press [at] diaart.org, or visit diaart.org.
