Dia Chelsea: Engaging Architecture and Art

The recently reopened Dia Art Foundation in Chelsea honors the institution’s architectural legacy, re-establishes its New York presence, and foregrounds the artist’s vision. Continuing Dia’s history of revitalizing buildings for contemporary art, the design honors the industrial vernacular of each structure and of the neighborhood itself, presenting the now-contiguous three adjacent buildings within a unified composition. The renewed Dia Chelsea creates a seamless experience for visitors, allowing the public to fully engage with and experience the art within the spaces.

Join the client, architects, and an artist for a conversation on the project’s origins, collaborative design process, the new space’s impact on artists, and Dia Chelsea’s resonance since reopening in 2021.

Speakers:
Brandon Cook, LEED AP, Studio Director, Storyn Studio for Architecture
Alexis Lowry, Curator, Dia Art Foundation
Jessica Morgan, Nathalie de Gunzburg Director, Dia Art Foundation
Lucy Raven, Artist
Kim Yao, AIA, Principal, Architecture Research Office
Adam Yarinsky, FAIA, LEED AP, Principal, Architecture Research Office

About the Speakers:

Brandon Cook holds an undergraduate degree in architecture and neuroscience from Wesleyan University and a Master of Architecture from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP). He has taught at the GSAPP, Pratt, NJIT, and the Architectural Association. Cook has worked for a range of firms, including SITU, BIG – Bjarke Ingels Group, Renzo Piano Building Workshop, Atelier Kempe Thill, and OMA/AMO, and has an exceptional track record for managing complex, multi-faceted cultural projects across the US and Europe. He is also a member of the AIANY Cultural Facilities Committee.

Alexis Lowry is curator at Dia Art Foundation, where she is responsible for exhibitions, commissions, and public programs across Dia’s sites and locations. At Dia Chelsea she has curated new projects by Lucy Raven, Rita McBride, and Kishio Suga. At Dia Beacon, she organized the first North American retrospective of Charlotte Posenenske’s work, as well as installations by Mel Bochner, Mary Corse, Charles Gaines, Barry Le Va, Lee Ufan, Robert Morris, Michelle Stuart, and Anne Truitt. Prior to joining Dia, she was curator of the David Winton Bell Gallery at Brown University and a freelance project manager for Creative Time. She has recently contributed to publications for Art Monthly, the Cornell Fine Arts Museum at Rollins College, The Drawing Center, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, in addition to books produced by Dia.

Jessica Morgan joined Dia Art Foundation as Director in January 2015 and was named Nathalie de Gunzburg Director in October 2017. At Dia, Morgan is responsible for strengthening and activating all parts of Dia’s multivalent program, including its pioneering land art projects, site-specific commissions, and collections and programming across its constellation of sites. Since assuming directorship, Morgan has led a series of initiatives reaffirming and reinvigorating the nonprofit’s founding vision and principles. In 2018, Morgan announced a comprehensive, multi-year campaign, which included the upgrade, revitalization, and ongoing stewardship of its key programmatic spaces and artist sites. Prior to assuming her position at Dia, Morgan was the Daskalopoulos Curator, International Art, at Tate Modern in London from 2010 to 2014, and was Curator at Tate from 2002 to 2010. Morgan was previously Chief Curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, and a curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Morgan organized the 2020 Verbier Art Summit and served as the artistic director of the 10th Gwangju Biennale in 2014. She has published extensively in Artforum and Parkett, as well as other journals and scholarly publications.

Lucy Raven was born in Tucson, Arizona, in 1977. She received a BFA in studio art and a BA in art history from the University of Arizona, Tucson, in 2000, and a MFA from Bard College’s Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts in 2008. Her work has been exhibited in solo presentations at the Nevada Museum of Art, Reno (2010); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2012); Portikus, Frankfurt (2014); Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco (2014); VOX centre de l’image contemporaine, Montreal (2015); Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio (2016); and Serpentine Galleries, London (2016–17). Select group shows include those at Mass MoCA, North Adams, Massachusetts (2008–09); Wexner Center for the Arts, Ohio State University, Columbus (2010); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2013); and Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2018–19). Additionally, Raven’s work was included in the 2012 Whitney Biennial, the 2016 Montreal Biennial, and 2018 Dhaka Art Summit. With Vic Brooks and Evan Calder Williams, she is a founding member of 13BC, a moving-image research and production collective. Raven teaches at the Cooper Union School of Art in New York.

Kim Yao holds an undergraduate degree in architecture from Columbia College and a Master of Architecture from Princeton University. She has taught at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation; the School of Constructed Environments, Parsons the New School for Design; and Barnard College. Yao has been awarded the AIA New York Medal of Honor and the Beverly Willis Foundation Mentorship Award. She was President of AIANY in 2020 and serves on the Board of the Center for Architecture.

Adam Yarinsky holds an undergraduate degree in architecture from the University of Virginia and a Master of Architecture from Princeton University. He has served as the Eliel Saarinen Professor at the University of Michigan, the Thomas Jefferson Professor at the University of Virginia, and the Eero Saarinen Visiting Professor at Yale University. He has also taught at Harvard University, Princeton University, Syracuse University, Parsons the New School for Design, and Washington University in St. Louis. Yarinsky’s writing has appeared in A+U, The Architect’s Newspaper, 306090, Dimensions, and Places Journal. He served on the board of Places Journal from 2012-2018 and he is on the University of Virginia School of Architecture Advisory Board.

This event is offered virtually; you will receive an email with a Zoom link to access the program.