Dia Art Foundation ( ) is a nonprofit organization that initiates, supports, presents, and preserves art projects. It was established in 1974 by Philippa de Menil, the daughter of Houston arts patron Dominique de Menil and an heiress to the Schlumberger oil exploration fortune; art dealer Heiner Friedrich, Philippa's husband; and Helen Winkler, a Houston art historian.Bob Colacello (September 1996), Remains of the Dia Vanity Fair. Dia provides support to projects "whose nature or scale would preclude other funding sources."
Dia holds a major collection of work by artists of the 1960s and 1970s, on view at Dia Beacon that opened in the Hudson Valley in 2003. Dia also presents exhibitions and programs at Dia Chelsea in New York City, located at 535, 541 and 545 West 22nd Street. In addition to its exhibition spaces at Dia Beacon and Dia Chelsea, Dia maintains and operates a constellation of commissions, long-term installations, and site-specific projects, notably focused on land art, nationally and internationally. Dia's permanent collection holdings include artworks by artists who came to prominence during the 1960s and 1970s, including Joseph Beuys, Dan Flavin, Donald Judd, Agnes Martin, and Andy Warhol. The art of this period represented a radical departure in artistic practice and is often large in scale; it is occasionally ephemeral or site-specific.
Currently, Dia commissions, supports, and presents site-specific installations and long-term exhibitions of work by these artists, as well as those of younger generations.
History Early years Heiner Friedrich was a German art dealer with galleries in Munich and Cologne which showed artists such as Andy Warhol, Cy Twombly, Donald Judd, and Dan Flavin. In 1973, Friedrich moved his galleries to New York City at 141 Wooster Street, now the site of The New York Earth Room. That year Friedrich traveled to Houston to visit the Rothko Chapel where he met Dominique de Menil's assistant Helen Winkler and was reintroduced to her daughter Philippa de Menil. Friedrich and Philippa de Menil would later both get divorces so they could marry each other in a 1979 Sufi ceremony and get a marriage license in 1982.Hoban, Phoebe. Medicis for a Moment: The Collapse of the Dia Dream. New York Magazine. November 25, 1985. Retrieved August 20, 2020.
Friedrich, Winkler, and Philippa de Menil founded Dia in 1974.About Dia . Dia Art Foundation. Retrieved May 14, 2020. The goal of the organization was to fund artists creating work on scales or with underlying natures that the funding sources of the time could not support. Friedrich's plan was to create a funding system similar to patronage systems from the Renaissance. Robert Whitman, a performance artist funded by Dia, stated that Friedrich "wanted to make a Sistine Chapel, create a Shakespeare." Friedrich himself stated that, "The 20th century clearly stands beside the Renaissance as one of the most powerfully visual ages. We have artists of the magnitude of Titian, be it Andy Warhol; of the magnitude of Michelangelo, be it Dan Flavin; of the magnitude of Donatello, be it Walter De Maria. This is why we did Dia." Friedrich had the vision and art contacts, while Philippa de Menil was heir to the Schlumberger oil fortune and had the money to support the idea. Philippa de Menil's husband, Francesco Pellizzi, was on the original six-member board, and Dominique and Christophe de Menil were on the advisory council.
Dia got its name from the Greek word "dia" which means "conduit." Friedrich explained the name choice with "'Dia' was chosen as a transitory term for an institution that would not be eternal but would make possible the presence of artworks on an extended, long-term basis" Dia first patronized a group of artists that included Donald Judd, Dan Flavin, John Chamberlain, Walter De Maria, La Monte Young, and Marian Zazeela. These artists received stipends, studios, and archivists in anticipation of one-man museums that Dia planned for several of them.Kimmelman, Michael. (September 15, 1996), At Dia, Fresh Wounds and a Fresh Start The New York Times. September 15, 1996. Retrieved August 22, 2020 Dia stayed away from press and was not well known through the '70s. The goal was for Dia to not have an identity and be a true "conduit" for the art works it was funding without adding themselves to it. An article by Phoebe Hoban in New York Magazine in 1985 called the foundation a "closely guarded secret" during this time period, references people calling it "the art Mafia," and notes that the organization didn't even have a letterhead.
Following a series of performance works and temporary exhibitions at Friedrich's gallery in SoHo, including the "Dream Festival" by La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela, Dia installed its first public artwork in 1975 at the Kunstmuseum Basel, in Basel, Switzerland. This artwork, Untitled (In memory of Urs Graf) by Dan Flavin, was installed in the museum's courtyard and consists of fluorescent tubes in varying colors outlining the space. This was followed in 1976 by a retrospective of six theater pieces by Robert Whitman
In 1977 Friedrich's gallery space was transformed into a permanent exhibition of Walter De Maria's The New York Earth Room and Dia's offices were moved to 107 Franklin Street. Dia planned the opening of three other works in 1977: Walter De Maria's The Vertical Earth Kilometer in Kassel Germany, and Lightning Field in New Mexico, as well as a permanent, multicolored, light installation by Dan Flavin stretching across three platforms at Grand Central Terminal in New York. The same year Dia purchased a volcanic crater in Arizona for James Turrell for his Roden Crater project (and later gave him approximately six million dollars to move the project forward).In 1979 the second location of Friedrich's gallery space, 393 West Broadway, was also given over to Walter De Maria for a permanent art installation, The Broken Kilometer.
Dia continued purchasing buildings to create one-man museums, and in some cases living quartets, for their roster of artists. Starting in 1979, the foundation hired architect Richard Gluckman and started looking for reinforced-concrete structures suitable for showing art. With his help 1979 saw the purchase and renovation of multiple sites including a former firehouse and church for the Dan Flavin Art Institute,Dan Flavin: nine sculptures in fluorescent light, 1963–81. Dia Art Foundation. Retrieved November 7, 2020. Dick's Castle in Garrison, New York (which was purchased for $1 million but later discovered was too expensive to renovate), and the Mercantile Exchange at 6 Harrison Street for Young and Zazeela to create Dream House (Dia spent approximately $4 million on buying and renovating the building and gave Young and Zazeela a budget of $500,000 a year for upkeep and artmaking.) This buying spree continued into the 1980s with the purchase of a building on West 19th street in 1980 for Robert Whitman spending $495,000 on the building and handing out $250,000 a year to Whitman for upkeep and art making, and the 1981 purchase of a former bank building in Winchendon, Massachusetts for Fred Sandback to create a one-man museum in. The year 1980 also saw Dia open the Masjid al-Farah (later Dergah al-Farah), a Sufi lodgeAnne Barnard (August 13, 2010), In Lower Manhattan, 2 Mosques Have Firm Roots The New York Times. replete with Flavin light works and living quarters for Sheikh Muzaffer Ozak al-Jerrahi, in a former firehouse at 155 Mercer Street. The opening of the Sufi lodge was a reflection of de Menil's recent conversion to the path of Sufi Islam and later ascension as spiritual guide to the Nur Ashki Jerrahi Order of New York City. Over this same time Friedrich and de Menil purchased the shuttered Fort D.A. Russell in Marfa, Texas, renamed it "The Art Museum of the Pecos," and planned to house works for multiple artists Dia funded. The 350 acres, now known as the Chinati Foundation, was conceived by Donald Judd who was given $17,500 a month as a salary and installation payment for the museum.
In the first ten years, Dia was spending up to $5 million a year on less than twelve artists, funding art commissions and living expenses for individual artists between $2,500 and $17,500 a month. The foundation spent over $30 million in less than 10 years amassing over 900 works and a small real estate empire. By 1981 Dia owned about $14 million worth of artwork and $15 million in real estate. Over 1980 and 1981 it spent about $19 million supporting artists and their work. These first years of Dia are marked with management issues, including paying taxes on properties that could be tax exempt and other extravagant spending. Philippa de Menil summed up how fast Dia did so much with "The reason we accomplished so much in terms of projects is that we just forged ahead and didn't worry about overspending."
Financial issues and restructuring Between 1980 and 1982, the Schlumberger oil stock cratered, going from about $87 a share to about $30. This drastic cut to de Menil's fortune forced Dia to begin tightening the purse strings with its artists. Artists were sent details about how to spin their projects off into independent foundations. In 1983, Donald Judd was informed that his brainchild in Marfa was being delayed, and he was advised to turn it into an independent foundation. Things got so bad financially for Dia in 1983 they were forced to take out a $3.87 million loan from Citibank using de Menil's Schlumberger stock as collateral. This prompted The New York state attorney general to begin an investigation into the foundation's practices and Judd threatened to sue Dia for breach of contract
1985 saw a shake up in Dia's board due to the financial issues and Judd's threatened lawsuit. Heiner Friedrich left the board and Philippa de Menil's financial support ended and her money was placed into a trust, although she remained a board member.Glueck, Grace. Dia Foundation, Back From Brink, Opens New Center. The New York Times. October 7, 1987. Retrieved August 28, 2009. Philippa de Menil's mother, Dominique de Menil, stepped in, and installed Ashton Hawkins, an executive vice president at the Metropolitan Museum, as Dia's chairman. Along with Hawkins, the new board members included Lois de Menil, John C. Evans, future United States Supreme Court justice Stephen Breyer, Margaret Douglas-Hamilton, and Herbert Brownell. Lois de Menil summed up the financial distress Dia was in with "We were absolutely appalled at the state of acute financial distress...There was a $5-million Citibank debt to pay, projected costs of $5-million, no operating budget, and no visible income."
The night before the new board was set to meet, Sheikh Muzaffer Ozak al-Jerrahi of the Sufi lodge Dia funded, passed away in Istanbul, Turkey. Philippa de Menil (now Fariha Fatima al-Jerrahi) ominously reflected on the passing of her spiritual guide saying, "His death seemed to herald many new changes."
The new board began slashing at Dia contracts and real estate to get the budget under control with projects being dropped and dismantled at a fast rate. The mosque was removed from 155 Mercer Street to 245 West Broadway. La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela had to leave the Harrison Street building, which was then sold for $5.5 million. Artists were outraged and threatened to sue. La Monte Young said, "The new board treated us like criminals, like terrorists... they took ten years of our lives away." and Dan Flavin remarked about the de Menil's that, "It doesn't matter who gets hurt in order to hold up the family reputation."