Dia Beacon Exploration

I was really excited to travel to Beacon, mainly because it was upstate. The ride there wasn’t that long and it seemed we had barely traveled away from the city. However from the second I stepped out of the train, I could tell we were no longer in New York City. The atmosphere in Beacon is totally different and I found the soothing atmosphere comforting. It was so quite and you could hear nature itself. The scenery there was amazing from the abundance in trees to the deserted roads.

When we reached out destiny, I wasn’t quite sure what I would be expecting except for the Richard Serra sculptures and it was more then what I expected. Walking through each and every one of them gave me a different feeling. The first one I went to had two paths, one that started from a narrow to a broader path and the other one from a broader to a narrow path. Natasha and I tried the two different paths at the same time and met in the middle with completely different feelings. She felt kind of suffocated as the path got more and more narrow while I felt like I was just take a normal stroll. The one I really liked was the last one in the back of the room where you can’t really tell when the path is going to end. I kept walking and walking, but I couldn’t see any signs of being close to an exit. In the end when you find yourself finishing the path, there’s a sign of relief. I felt that being in the middle of the towering sculpture was a different feeling all together. It was as if I was in a forest and only surrounded by towering trees. It was just me and the sculpture and I really enjoyed the empty space. It was as if I found a quite place to think to myself.

I found myself not connecting to a lot of exhibits because the whole time I was trying to figure out the meaning behind every picture in the exhibit. I found all of them intriguing but not all of them made sense. I guess you really can’t always make sense out of art. One that stood out to me was the exhibit with all the paintings with just simple colors on them. There would be tons of them in a room but they would all just be different shades of color bordered by different shades of color. Some were of different sizes too but they mostly had the same structure. I thought to myself is there a meaning to all these different paintings of the same thing except in different colors? Another exhibit that stood out to me was the exhibit with all the crushed cars and other things. I thought that maybe there should have been something to tell us what each crushed item was in front of the actual crushed item but maybe it was also meant to let us try and figure out ourselves what that crushed item was before it got crushed.

One exhibit that really stood out to me was the exhibit in the basement where it was completely dark with the televisions. I found it so eerie and interesting at the same time. All they did was place televisions in the dark yet it brought out so much inner feeling in me. They also had empty chairs in front of the televisions. One might think that it was for people to sit on and let people look at the television but I thought it was meant to bring out the eerie feeling to make it seem as if someone was already sitting there watching T.V. I felt like I was in a horror movie and the last one alive and about to be killed. I was with Natasha and we were waiting for the elevator to go upstairs and it seemed like it was straight out of a movie where something would happen to us as we waited.

For the dance itself I was quite taken a back when the first lady screamed and threw a tantrum. It was really sudden yet also really interesting. It was also interesting watching her walk while cringing during the 2nd part. The way she could control her body to make it look so painful  or wrong to the eyes was amazing. There really wasn’t much of a connecting between the different performances though. I didn’t quite understand the one where each individual came up and started doing something with no music on. It was hard to follow and understand what they were trying to convey. At the end though when they did the dance with the pillows, I thought it was really cute and lively compared to the rest of the performance. It also brought life back with the music after the long period of time without the music.

Ultimately I found Dia Beacon interesting with the different exhibits it contained and the unique dance performances. The location is beautiful and the building itself was beautiful. I loved looking up at the ceiling throughout my exploration of Dia Beacon because the ceiling had such a unique layout and the light really shines into the building and gives it a unique flair.