Beacon art

The ballyhooed Dia museum left me pretty cold, another modern art collection in a former factory, with big metal pieces by Richard Serra (not including his Tilted Arc, which was dismantled and evicted by public protest from a Manhattan plaza in 1989), abstract drawings by Sol LeWitt (the least minimalist of which I liked), piles of broken glass and dirt, a big room full of boring blue "Shadows" by Andy Warhol, and some fairly creepy stuff including Louise Bourgeois sculptures.

In my prosaic way, I preferred the aerial photo exhibit at the downtown Beacon Institute, of current and former industrial sites on the Hudson River from Manhattan up to Troy.

Comments

[Terry O'Neill, Esq.]

I've not been to the Dia Foundation art foundries. It was formerly known as the Tallix Foundry. I made a number of visits in 1993 when were developing The Gray Rider, our monument to the men and women of the New York State Police, Hy Rosen, sculptor. It was fascinating to see our bronze Trooper being cast in a foundry where the works of Frank Stella, Erte and the noted Nortwest Coast Haida artist Joe David were lying around the yard in various states of completion. There were also components of the Korean Conflict Memorial that was unveiled in Washington the following year. Great place. Makes me want to put up another public monumant.

[Bob Conner]

I like Hy Rosen's sculpture for the women's service memorial on (or near) Empire State Plaza by the state library, although I think some feminists found it inappropriately beautiful.