On
Sunday, May 17, 2009, Dia Art Foundation held its annual Spring Benefit
at Dia:Beacon. Sandra Brant and Ingrid Sischy, Frannie Dittmer, David
H. Hundley and Kenneth T. Burles, Brian Phillips, and Martha
Stewart were co-chairs.
Dia:Beacon, Riggio Galleries is the home of Dia's renowned collection
of art from 1960s to the present. For the past two years Merce Cunningham
Dance Company has been in residency, and the Benefit was the last opportunity
to see one of Merce's groundbreaking and acclaimed Beacon Events.
The performance was set against Imi Knoebel's monumental, 24 Colors—for
Blinky, 1977, which was recently restored with support from Gucci.
The event also celebrated The Resources of Rhetoric, an exhibition
comprising rarely seen paintings by Spanish artist Antoni Tàpies
and Zoe Leonard's original commission for Dia You see I am here
after all, 2008.
Danny Meyer's Hudson Yards created a Hudson Valley-inspired
lunch menu which will be served amidst Andy Warhol's Shadow paintings.
The tabletops were conceived by Denise Porcano, Flower Girl.
In addition to Benefit co-chairs, guests included Dia director Philippe
Vergne, Dia chairman Nathalie de Gunzburg and her husband Charles de
Gunzburg; Dia trustees Christopher Bass, Connie Caplan, Alden Pinnell,
and Howard Rachofsky. Also in attendance were actor James Franco, philanthropists
Liz Radke and Kirk Radke, Melissa Soros and Robert Soros; collectors
Melva Bucksbaum and Raymond Learsy, Jill Kraus and Peter Kraus, Nancy
Olnick and Giorgio Spanu, Jennifer Stockman and David Stockman, Amy
Phelan and John Phelan,; gallerists Stefania Bortolami, Elizabeth Dee,
Marian Goodman, Carol Greene, Gagosian's Robin Vousden and John
Good, and Creative Time's Anne Pasternack. Artists included Marina
Abramovic, Björk, Matthew Barney, Tom Burr, Timothy Greenfield-Sanders,
Jim Hodges, Keith Sonnier, Doug and Mike Starn, George Trakas, Robert
Whitman, La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela. Writer Francine du Plessix
Gray, Vogue's Sara Moonves and Stephanie LaCava, designers Carolyn
Roehm, Nina Griscom, Elise Overland, and Opening Ceremony's Humberto
Leon and Carol Lim.
