Trip to Dia Beacon

I really enjoyed our trip to the Dia Beacon. I even liked our train ride up to the museum because I saw sights that seemed to be the complete opposite of NYC. Some of the things I saw looked like mini castles which was a pleasant change from the skyscrapers of NYC. The vibrant colors of autumn emerging from the vast array of trees was really beautiful.

Then we finally got to the Dia Beacon and we were welcomed by a little colorful pletora of letters which was already a good sign!

When we started entering the exhibits, I honestly thought we would be done with them rather quickly. However, the museum was huge! On every corner there was something new to see. One of my favorite exhibits at the museum was the Work as Action: Franz Erchard Walther exhibit. When we first entered I asked Maryam and Sari what the exhibit was about. At first, none of us really had any idea what the point of it was. Then as we were going through another exhibit, Maryam figured out that the items around the side of the exhibit were meant to be used by the visitors. At that moment we ran back to the exhibit and began trying on the different items. We were like little children playing with toys. What I thought was really interesting was that we had to put the art piece exactly as we found it. One of the first things we tried on was the “Sehkanel (Channel of Sight), 1968” where two people are in complete sight of each other. The other one that we tried on was kind of like an iron man vest. Putting it on was hard but once you had it on your soliders, it felt really light. Literally, a weight was lifted off our shoulders. We even banged our head against a wall!  Another interesting aspect was that each person had to wait for another person to be done with their artwork. So if I was trying on one item, another person couldn’t try it on even if it a completely different item. Sari pointed out how she thought the artist’s intention was to make each person part of the artwork, as all of us looked on, which I thought was interesting.

Another one of my favorite exhibits was the Sol LeWitt Drawing Series. At first glance, it just looked like random lines across the wall. However, as we looked closer we saw the plan that the artist laid out for us. It was literally all the combinations of the patterns he had up. It was almost like a puzzle board with the different grids and shapes and he just scattered them all around. All of his work was based on mathematical concepts which isn’t an easy thing to do.

The Circa 1971: Early Video and Film from the EAI Archive was odd. It was filled with little television screens presenting a moment from different movies. It reminded me of an exhibit that I saw at the MOMA last year. However, the screen with the sinister looking man, pretending to shoot the viewer was pretty disturbing. It was a dark lit exhibits with vibrant colors and lights everywhere. Overall though, I was kind of scared going into and coming out of that exhibit.

The Richard Serra iron pieces were breath-taking. Going into the sculptures made me feel secluded and safe. It was serene-like, and whenever we spoke our voices would echo which was something that I am not used to. My favorite piece was the one that spiraled around, it made me feel like I was in a maze. I honestly had no idea where I was going. It was a pleasant change from hearing all the different loud noises in the city.

The Richard Serra exhibit let us into a garden which had a tiny stair-case in the middle. Going through it was kind of like a game and I feel like it was done purposely to make us feel constricted in such an open space. It was a nice kind of constricted though. And the garden was beautiful.

Finally we saw the Yvonne Rainer dance performance. I thought several aspects of the dance were odd. For instance, when the first female dancer started screaming after she put her trench coat on top of some piece of cotton, I was taken aback. I was also bewildered when she kept repeating “the sun is brighter when the sun is yellower.” My favorite part of the performance was the upbeat music and the part with the pillows/chairs. I thought the pillows/chairs routine was the most optimistic and had actual dance moves in it. I also thought that the part with all the dancers doing their individual routines was interesting since they were all so synchronized.

Overall, this was truly an extraordinary museum and I really enjoyed our trip.