An hour’s train ride north of Manhattan, straight up the Hudson River toward Poughkeepsie, is the new Dia:Beacon art museum. I stopped there today on my way back to Boston from Washington, DC. It is a vast warehouse of contemporary art, sort of like Mass MOCA, but much more a celebration of the art and the artists and much less about the building and the institution. Where Mass MOCA has big signs talking about the history of each room, the Dia:Beacon has only signs giving information about the art. Where Mass MOCA crams the art into whatever space is convenient for a season or two and then shoves it back out the front door, the art at Dia:Beacon has found a permanent home. Each artist gets at least one room to him or herself.
Philip and Annie’s tips for would-be visitors:
1) Don’t judge Dan Flavin, the fluorescent tube artist, by what you see in Beacon; go to Marfa, Texas (another Dia-funded project).
2) The cafe is rough around the edges. Eat before you arrive unless you just want coffee and carbs.
3) Don’t miss the Robert Irwin garden (same guy who did the garden at the New Getty) and the big collection of Serras in the adjoining basement.
4) Be sure to read the essay in the Sandback string sculpture room, which is also available on the Web site (pull down “Riggio Galleries” from the “Beacon” menu). Favorite excerpts: “space is both defined and imbued with an incorporeal palpability”; “each sculpture is newly parsed for the site”; “Fact and illusion are equivalents,” [Fred Sandback] asserts; “Trying to weed one out in favor of the other is dealing with an incomplete situation.” [Getting to the Dia:Beacon had required flying through 30 minutes of cumulus clouds on an instrument flight from Gaithersburg, MD, the rest of which was obscured by the same kind of summer haze that proved fatal to JFK, Jr.-style; imagine if the airline pilots flying through the same conditions decided that fact (what the instruments say) and illusion (one’s natural perceptions of being straight and level or falling sideways) were equivalent.]
For pilots or people whose friends are pilots: You get to Dia:Beacon by flying into Stewart Air Force Base, KSWF, an active base for C5 cargo jets. The runway is 11,800′ long so if you have trouble landing a Cessna there don’t tell anyone. Taxi over to Rifton Aviation and borrow a crew car (1994 Ford Escorts with 110,000+ miles on them, perfectly adequate with air conditioning and a radio, thus proving the previously stated theory about the $2,000 Chinese car) for a 15-minute drive over to the east side of the Hudson River. Take the first exit on 9D and follow signs for the train station in Beacon. The museum is just south of the train station.
The collision of Greenspun-ism and artworld jargon is too awful to contemplate. A guest editor spot in Artforum would be great to see, Philip.
Philip,
Did you fly from Gaithersburg Air Park? If so, you undoubtedly passed by my humble abode (about a mile away). If you’ll be flying to the area again, let me know and I’ll write “Hi, Philip” on my roof in really big letters. (Maybe I *could* “monetize” by selling ad space there….)
Seriously, though: as a private pilot, do you find yourself encountering difficulties as a result of the post-9/11 flight restrictions in and around DC? I know there are still some airport closures and flight restrictions that remain in place due to security concerns.
Matthew: I did fly from GAI. DC is pretty annoying. If you go in and out on an instrument flight plan everything is the same as before 9/11. But basically you would not fly around the DC area for casual fun. It would be especially hard on a new pilot because you have to talk and listen on some very busy approach control frequencies, all this while being very careful not to stray into the Bravo airspace around Dulles and BWI (or the prohibited area over downtown DC). My friends who used to fly into College Park airport and take the Metro into town are very unhappy because that airport is closed except to based pilots and even those guys have to stop outside and get searched before they can proceed home to land.
If you’re instrument rated you can basically file a flight plan, turn off your brain, and follow instructions from the controllers. You’re still responsible not to overfly the prohibited area but the controllers would be very unlikely to vector you over downtown DC by mistake. This is what I do. IFR in, IFR out, and only the occasional sightseeing ride (took my brother and two little kids up the Potomac to Harper’s Ferry a couple of trips ago; the kids got into some chocolate-covered energy bars in the back seat and there was quite a disgusting mess but they were smiling).
Just returned from the DIA – what a waste. I called ahead to find out their policy on photography – was expecting the usual ‘photo without flash ok’ but instead was to it was verboten! Once there I realized why – the art is a scam. There is nothing artistic about the exhibits tho’ the exhibit space is to die for – that would’ve been worth photographing. Food was sup-par. Outside landscaping was interesting and it is here that i spent time with camera and film. But as for the main course – come on – blank white canvases – oh and all those German types talking about spanking their monkeys was bad! -ernie