There are twelve locations and sites which the Dia Art Foundation considers part of its constellation of art museums and long-term installations.Dia . Dia Art Foundation. Retrieved May 15, 2020. Dia breaks its holdings into two distinct categories: locations and sites. "Locations" include museum structures that contain galleries of smaller works either on permanent or temporary display, while "sites" are long-term art installations placed outside of the gallery context that have been either commissioned or acquired by Dia. All three locations are found in New York state, while the nine sites are located in New York, New Mexico, Utah, South Carolina, and Germany.Visit Our Locations & Sites. Dia Art Foundation. Retrieved May 19, 2023. Currently one location, Dia SoHo, is scheduled to be opened in 2022,Freeman, Nate. The Dia Art Foundation will expand its Chelsea galleries and launch a new SoHo space. . Artsy. May 7, 2019. Retrieved May 15, 2020.Admission to Dia's New York City Sites Will Soon Be Free . Artforum. September 19, 2019. Retrieved May 16, 2020. and there are nineteen sites that were once listed by Dia but are no longer listed.

The Dia Art Foundation was established in 1974 in New York City by the not yet married Heiner Friedrich and Schlumberger heiress Philippa de Menil, as well as Helen Winkler. They created the institution to help artists realize ambitious projects whose scale and scope is not feasible within the normal museum and gallery systems.Colacello, Bob. Remains of the Dia . Vanity Fair. April 30, 2008. Retrieved May 16, 2020. With Friedrich and de Menil's combined large fortune, the foundation began supporting minimalist, conceptual, and land artists with, as Vanity Fair describes in an article, "stipends, studios, assistants, and archivists for the individual museums it planned to build for each of them". Beginning with a collection of warehouse spaces in New York and outdoor spaces in the American West, the foundation did not focus on constructing true museums but focused on singular artistic visions.Goldstein, Andrew. Is It Time for a Land Art Renaissance? Jessica Morgan on Her Ambitious Vision for Dia in New York and Far, Far Beyond . ARTnews. May 17, 2019. Retrieved May 16, 2020. This approach changed slightly in 1987 with the opening of Dia's first rotating exhibition space, the Dia Center for the Arts, now Dia Chelsea, on 22nd Street in New York City. Dia Beacon, a former Nabisco box factory turned into a large-scale museum for the permanent collection, opened in 2003.

The foundation began by working with and collecting the work of only twelve artists: Joseph Beuys, Walter De Maria, Dan Flavin, Donald Judd, Imi Knoebel, Blinky Palermo, Fred Sandback, James Turrell, Cy Twombly, Andy Warhol, Robert Whitman, and La Monte Young.Cooke, Lynne and Govan, Michael. Dia Beacon. . Dia Art Foundation. 2003. New York. p. 10-11.Goldstein, Andrew. ‘There Were Women Working Then, Too’: How Dia Director Jessica Morgan Is Breaking Open the (Male) Canon of Postwar Art . ARTnews. May 15, 2019. Retrieved May 17, 2020. To this day the foundation owns works by less than 50 artists, but contains a breadth and depth of their work in a way other institutions do not have the resources to maintain. Dia Director Jessica Morgan explains the relationship between Dia and its artists as, "I wouldn't use the word 'family', but these are people we're in communication with almost on a weekly basis, and in some cases we hold the vast majority of their seminal work". Known for its focus on American male minimalist, experimental, and land artists from the 1960s and 1970s, Dia's focus has been changing to include other artists from the era, largely women and Japanese artists, since Morgan became curator in 2015. This gradual refocus is markedly seen in the 2018 acquisition of Sun Tunnels by Nancy Holt, Dia's most recent addition to their list of sites.

Locations

Dia maintains three locations all within New York State. These locations present galleries of work, either owned by or loaned to Dia, in temporary or permanent installations. Dia Chelsea, the first Dia location, was known as the Dia Center for the Arts from its opening in 1987 through the opening of Dia Beacon in 2003.

Location Placement Year opened Description Dia Beacon Beacon,New York 2003 Dia's permanent collection is housed in this former Nabisco box printing factory with each gallery designed for the presentation of a single artist's work. Dia Beacon . Dia Art Foundation. Retrieved May 14, 2020. Dia Bridgehampton Bridgehampton,New York 1979 building purchased by Dia,1983 Dan Flavin Art Institute established2020 renamed Home of the Dan Flavin Art Institute, nine fluorescent light works by the artist on permanent display, the former fire house and church also has a gallery for rotating exhibitions. Dia Bridgehampton . Dia Art Foundation. Retrieved May 14, 2020. Dia Chelsea New York City,New York 1987,2004 closed,2015 moved and reopened,2020 renovation and expansion A collection of three former industrial buildings, architecturally connected during a 2020 renovation, which now hosts temporary exhibitions. Dia Chelsea . Dia Art Foundation. Retrieved May 14, 2020.Dia Reveals Comprehensive, Multi-Year Plan to Strengthen Mission And Revitalize its Constellation of Sites in New York . Dia Art Foundation. Retrieved May 14, 2020.

Sites

Dia lists nine sites in its catalogue. These sites include commissions, land art, long-term art installations not in a gallery context, and site-specific installations. While focused largely in New York City and the American West, there are sites also placed internationally and elsewhere in the United States. The first sites were a trio of acquisitions and commissions by Walter De Maria in 1977 and the most recently collected site is Depreciation by Cameron Rowland, on extended loan since 2023.

Site Artist Placement Year Year acquired Description 7000 Oaks Joseph Beuys New York City,New York 1982 begun,1988 NYC installation,1996, 2020 expanded 1988 38 trees each paired with a roughly four foot tall basalt stone. Joseph Beuys, 7000 Oaks . Dia Art Foundation. Retrieved May 14, 2020. Depreciation Cameron Rowland Edisto Island,South Carolina20182023 A restrictive covenant for 1 acre of land on the site of the former Maxcy Place plantation. The land was purchased at market value in 2018, but is now appraised at $0 due to the covenant. The land is not to be visited, but documentation is on long term display at Dia Chelsea. Spiral Jetty Robert Smithson Great Salt Lake at Rozel Point,Box Elder County,Utah 1970 1999 A by jetty made from six thousand tons of black basalt and soil from the area arranged in spiral. Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty . Dia Art Foundation. Retrieved May 14, 2020. Sun Tunnels Nancy Holt Great Basin Desert,Utah 1973–76 2018 Four concrete cylinders, measuring eighteen feet long by nine feet in diameter, sitting in an open cross layout and arranged to line up with the sunset on solstice days. Nancy Holt, Sun Tunnels . Dia Art Foundation. Retrieved May 14, 2020. The Broken Kilometer Walter De Maria New York City,New York 1979 1979 A grid of 500 polished brass rods, with a total length of 3,280 feet, lying on the floor and illuminated with metal-halide stadium lights. Walter De Maria, The Broken Kilometer . Dia Art Foundation. Retrieved May 14, 2020. The Lightning Field Walter De Maria Quemado New Mexico 1977 1977 400 stainless steel poles standing upright to define a horizontal plane over a one mile by one kilometer area. Walter De Maria, The Lightning Field . Dia Art Foundation. Retrieved May 14, 2020. The New York Earth Room Walter De Maria New York City,New York 1977 1977 A 3,600 square foot room filled with 250 cubic yards of soil to a depth of 22 inches. Walter De Maria, The New York Earth Room . Dia Art Foundation. Retrieved May 14, 2020. The Vertical Earth Kilometer Walter De Maria Kassel,Germany 1977 1977 A five centimeter wide, one kilometer long brass rod inserted vertically into the earth with its top flush to the ground. Walter De Maria, The Vertical Earth Kilometer . Dia Art Foundation. Retrieved May 14, 2020. Times Square Max Neuhaus New York City,New York 1977,2002 reinstalled 2002 Sound emanating from a grate in Times Square on a triangular pedestrian island between 45th and 46th streets. Max Neuhaus, Times Square . Dia Art Foundation. Retrieved May 14, 2020.

Former locations and sites

There are multiple Dia locations, sites, or long term installations, that were once listed in Dia publications or press releases but are no longer categorized as such. These sites were not necessarily removed from view, for instance The Dan Flavin Art Institute became part of Dia Bridgehampton and Dan Flavin's Untitled (to you, Heiner, with admiration and affection) was moved from Munich, Germany to Dia Beacon.Cascone, Sarah. Dan Flavin Lights Up Dia Beacon With Stunning Subterranean Installation . Artnet. May 10, 2016. Retrieved June 22, 2020. To be included in this list the location or site either is listed in the "Time Line of Locations and Sites" found in the 2021 book An Introduction to Dia's Locations and Sites edited by Kamilah N. Foreman, Matilde Guidelli-Guidi, and Sophia Larigakis, or are mentioned in a Dia press release where the locations and sites of that time are listed.