Jessica Morgan, the new director of the Dia Art Foundation, is pursuing other ways to re-establish its presence in Manhattan, having abandoned her predecessor’s plan to build a new home for the organisation in Chelsea.
The former Tate Modern curator has already relaunched Dia’s space at 545 West 22nd Street, which went unused for ten years, with an exhibition of La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela’s Dream House (until 24 October). Now in the permanent collection, the installation was the first acquisition Morgan made after taking up her post.
“I want to be programming constantly in Chelsea again because it makes no sense to have this incredible real estate and to be renting it out,” Morgan says. “It’s essential that we have a presence in the city.” Dia has two other spaces in Chelsea: 535 West 22nd Street, where talks are held on the floor above Dia’s offices, and 541 West 22nd Street, which is used for temporary events.
A survey of works by the Minimalist artist Robert Ryman—his first in the US for more than 20 years—is due to open at 545 West 22nd Street on 9 December (until 18 June 2016). After that, Morgan says she “will probably shift to more contemporary commissions”. She is talking to a number of artists, but says it is too early to confirm whom.
Philippe Vergne, the previous director of Dia, who left to take over the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles in 2014, planned to build a space across two of the three Chelsea sites. “I’m not pursuing [Philippe’s] plan,” Morgan says, but hints that the buildings might be reconfigured at some point.
For now, Morgan is focusing on bringing “equilibrium” to all of Dia’s spaces. She is overseeing a rehang at the organisation’s outpost in Beacon, upstate New York, and recently opened a two-year exhibition of Dan Flavin’s icons at Dia’s Dan Flavin Art Institute in Bridgehampton (until 30 April 2017). “It’s about bringing more attention and energy to our different sites,” she says. “They are all equally important.”