Dia Beacon

Beacon, New York (population 14,566) doesn’t leap to mind when culture is the topic of conversation. Known as the hat-making capital of America in the 1800s, the majority of its factories have long since been shuttered. Nevertheless, it’s home to one of the country’s most distinguished collections of 1960s and 70s contemporary art. That’s because the Dia Art Foundation, which specializes in preserving and exhibiting the large-scale art of that period, saw the potential in that industrial heritage and built a 240,000-square-foot exhibition space inside a former Nabisco box-printing factory. Today, visitors to Dia: Beacon, Riggio Galleries can see works that are as big as they are engaging, such as Andy Warhol’s Shadows, Robert Smithson’s Map of Broken Glass and Gerhard Richter’s Six Gray Mirrors.

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As you walk deeper into the iron bowels of the gigantic Richard Serra sculpture in one of Dia: Beacon's galleries, you’ll pause for a moment. Should you really be traveling through the piece’s labyrinthine curves? The circular monster is so imposing, it seems that it’s almost falling on top of you as you navigate its spirals. Once you reach the center, you inhale a relieved breath of air that's spiked with a whiff of rusted metal. The massive minimalist art at this New York museum is meant to be enveloping. After all, this abandoned Nabisco box factory was the only building in the area big enough to hold all of the large-scale installation pieces. Go explore some more, as soon as you build up the courage to walk back out.

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Housed in a renovated 300,000-square-foot printing factory on the bank of the Hudson River, Dia:Beacon shows its permanent collection by artists such as Agnes Martin, Donald Judd, Cy Twombly, Gerhard Richter and Andy Warhol. The 34,000 square feet of skylights illuminate the art with gorgeous, diffused lighting, much like in the photographs on display by Bernd and Hilla Becher. Dia:Beacon is easily accessible by Metro-North. Leave enough time to gaze at Richard Serra’s installation, a series of “Torqued Ellipses.”

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