Dia Art Foundation

Related Category: Private Foundations

American foundation that supports contemporary art and artists, est. 1974 by art dealer Heiner Friedrich and his wife, art patron Philippa de Menil. The foundation, which commissions and purchases artworks, specializes in artists first recognized in the 1960s and 70s and younger artists working within the same aesthetic tradition, and has amassed a significant collection. Dia presents long-term exhibitions and site-specific installations and also funds such activities as lectures, poetry readings, and Web-based projects.

Dia operates two museums—Dia:Chelsea (est. 1987, formerly the Dia Center for the Arts) in New York City and Dia:Beacon (est. 2003), the world's largest contemporary art museum, in Beacon, N.Y. Both are large, but the Beacon site, where some galleries are devoted to a single artist, contain unusually huge unbroken spaces ideal for exhibiting the frequently monumental and often minimalist (see minimalism) art and large-scale installations Dia favors. The foundation also funds massive land art projects in other parts of the country, such as Donald Judd's installations at Marfa, Tex.; Michael Heizer's City in Nevada; James Turrell's Roden Crater in Arizona; and Walter De Maria's Lightning Field in New Mexico (see land art). Dia's permanent collection includes pivotal works by such artists as Joseph Beuys, Louise Bourgeois, John Chamberlain, Dan Flavin, Judd, Agnes Martin, Gerhard Richter, Richard Serra, and Andy Warhol.