A Special Event: The Dia: Beacon Bus Trip

If you haven't gone on one of the DCCA's bus trips, you, dear reader, have been missing out. Yesterday (Thursday), the DCCA's Fearless Leader and Executive Director Maxine Gaiber took some of the DCCA staff, DCCA members, and other art fans on a tour around the town of Beacon. Put that way, the trip doesn't sound particularly scintillating. But don't be fooled, dear readers. The quaint, picturesque facade of Beacon's small town streets, New England style homes,  and gothic revival architecture hides a shocking secret: Beacon is a thriving hub of contemporary art. Indeed, this sleepy little town is the home of the Starn Twins' studio and Dia:Beacon, a fantastic museum full of conceptual, installation pieces.

Richard Serra, Torqued Ellipse II, 1996; Double
Torqued Ellipse, 1997.Dia Art Foundation; gift of Louise and
Leonard Riggio. 2000, 2000. Dia Art Foundation.
Photo: ©©Richard Barnes.

After being treated to delicious muffins, bagels, and hot coffee on the trip up to Beacon, our group went on a guided tour of the Starn twins' vast (and I mean vast) studio. Unfortunately, the brothers themselves were not in residence. They are, we were told, hard at work on an installation entitled Big Bambú. This piece is currently housed on the roof of a modest, little-known museum called The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The building that houses the studio is rather unassuming. It's housed in the shell of an old factory and, as such, it isn't exactly a visual smorgasbord on the outside. Once you step inside, however, it's quite a task to keep your jaw from dropping. The first sight to meet your eyes when you enter the studio is an enormous print of a decaying human face that is probably about one third of the size of a football field. Assuming you can manage to close your mouth and look at anything other than that gigantic print, you soon notice smaller, just as enchanting images peppered throughout the studios and along the walls. There are photographs of trees that look like neurons, images of decaying leaves photographed in poetic high contrast, a giggle-worthy alteration of DaVinci's St. John the Baptist, and, perhaps most notably, a prototype of Big Bambú.

In case you haven't gotten a chance to stop by that little known museum and see the finished product of Big Bambú for yourself, I'll tell you a little about it. The Starn brothers have created massive, interactive structures made almost entirely out of bamboo poles tied together with rock climbing rope. The structures are incredibly complex and are sturdy enough that it is possible, if you haven't just watched a broadcast of Vertigo on television, to walk on the ramps that run, like arteries, throughout the pieces. Our group got to do just that and, though yours truly spent most of the time clutching the nearest sturdy-seeming handrail with visions of Jimmy Stewart dangling in her head, I can tell you that it was a fantastic, once-in-a-lifetime experience.



After lunch and a stroll around the town, the group's next stop was Dia:Beacon. I'm somewhat ashamed to admit that I had never hear of this gem of a museum before I was invited to go on the bus trip. As such, I wasn't expecting to be shocked, amazed, and delighted as often as I was as the group was led on a guided tour throughout the venue. The guide was fantastic and, after it was over, everyone was free to roam the museum on his or her own for the next hour.

Walking through Dia:Beacon is much like wandering through an imaginative dream world in which the landscape (and the art) constantly shifts and changes. Of course, such an experience is probably to be expected when a museum's holdings consist of monumental steel structures by Richard Serra, intricately drawn installations of Sol Lewitt's conceptual art, and a host of other mind-bending installations. Though choosing a favorite piece out of the collection is an action that is sure to stir up contrary opinions, I have to say that my favorites were definitely Richard Serra's works. There's something about that wonderful sensation of being dwarfed and protected by his pieces that was positively sublime.

Now, ladies and gentlemen and boys and girls, what is the moral of this story? That's simple enough of a question: Don't miss out on the DCCA's bus trips. They are guaranteed to show you the time of your life. Or, in my case, make your life flash before your eyes as your shoes slip on bamboo while you're forty feet in the air.

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The Starn Brothers' Website

Dia: Beacon's Website

Information about the next bus trip