Skip to main content

Dia

Beacon

Sarah Hetherington
Eyeline 77
The following is a brief preview - the full content of this page is available to premium users only.
Click here to subscribe...

In the 1960s and 1970s a generation of artists rose to prominence for work which extended art beyond the traditional boundaries of the conventional museum framework. This period was a time of specific ambition and great experimentation; a coalescence of Pop, Performance, Conceptual Art, Earth Art and Minimalism. What resulted was a new way of considering the intricate networks in which art exists—fundamental relationships between the work, the viewer and the ideal context. Artists, such as the pioneers of Earth Art (Michael Heizer, Walter de Maria, James Turrell and Robert Smithson) sought to present site-specific, large scale installations in the great American southwest—an abstruse, isolated landscape of desert plains, vast skies and open space, with an inherent spirituality. These projects questioned art’s materiality, its relation to space and light, and dramatically shifted the way in which art could be presented and interpreted.

How then could artists envision and pursue projects that ventured beyond the ‘white cube’? How could museums respond to their changing needs?

In 1972, the Minimalist Donald Judd moved from New York to the small town of Marfa, Texas. Judd was in search of rarefied isolation; a specific environment where he could create, install and view art in a permanent context. The Dia Foundation initially assisted him in the acquisition of Fort D.A. Russell, a former army post on 340 acres of land, which was to be converted into an indoor and outdoor museum, dedicated to the site-specific display of Judd’s work, and that of certain contemporaries such as Dan Flavin and John Chamberlain. Judd’s approach was to acquire and renovate the town’s utilitarian buildings, maintaining their architectural qualities, demonstrating sensitivity to the original structures while maximising the... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline

On Kawara, Thirty-six Date-Paintings of 35 years from the Today Series, 1966–2000. Installation view, 1966. Dia Art Foundation; Lannan Foundation, long-term loan; collection of the artist. Photograph Bill Jacobson.

On Kawara, Thirty-six Date-Paintings of 35 years from the Today Series, 1966–2000. Installation view, 1966. Dia Art Foundation; Lannan Foundation, long-term loan; collection of the artist. Photograph Bill Jacobson.

Sol LeWitt, Drawing Series–Composite, Part I–IV, #1–24, B, 1969. Installation view. ©Sol LeWitt.

Sol LeWitt, Drawing Series–Composite, Part I–IV, #1–24, B, 1969. Installation view. ©Sol LeWitt.