On one of the season’s first balmy Saturdays, the Dia Art Foundation gathered its community in Beacon for its annual Spring Benefit, drawing artists, curators, museum leaders, and fashion figures for a day of cultural celebration and stewardship. This year’s edition arrived with particularly newsy momentum: the opening of seven major exhibitions across Dia’s Beacon campus, including the work of John Chamberlain, Lee Ufan, Kishio Suga, and Jack Whitten; the roll-out of the foundation’s new partnership with Chanel; and a guest list that reflected the organization’s increasingly wide-reaching influence across the realms of art, fashion, film, and philanthropy.
The Scene: Attendees were invited to explore the various exhibitions at Dia Beacon, both long-standing and new, while they gathered to support Dia’s new commissions, and public and educational programs. A special children’s program at the Serra galleries was held for younger guests, and all were invited to wander the over 20 different galleries onsite throughout the day.
The Locale: Set inside a former Nabisco box-printing factory along the Hudson River, Dia Beacon once again proved why it remains one of the art world’s most transporting destinations. Flooded with natural light from signature sawtooth skylights, and framed by 16-foot ceilings, the museum’s raw grandeur offered an appropriate setting for a day devoted to transformative artists.
The Crowd: Chanel’s hand in the proceedings drew a delightfully cross-disciplinary mix of cultural heavyweights, with present co-chairs including patron Nathalie de Gunzburg and artists Joan Jonas and Lisa Yuskavage. Artists Carrie Mae Weems, Henry Taylor, Marilyn Minter, Tehching Hsieh, Lee Ufan, and Taryn Simon mingled alongside museum leaders Klaus Biesenbach, Thelma Golden, Max Hollein, Legacy Russell, and Glenn Lowry, while collectors and patrons included Isha Ambani, Roger and Jane Skinner Goodell, and James and Kathryn Murdoch. Fashion and entertainment figures numbered model Paloma Elsesser, writer Derek Blasberg, and entrepreneur Lauren Santo Domingo.
Food and Drink: The afternoon began with a reception in the Gerhard Richter galleries before guests sat down to a family-style seasonal spring lunch, served amid Chamberlain’s muscular sculptures, in a collision of the art world’s scale and the location’s relaxed finesse.
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