Tag: Precious Okoyomon

For more than half a century, Dia Art Foundation has redefined how art can be supported, exhibited and preserved—particularly when it comes to large-scale, long-term, or site-specific works that fall outside the confines of traditional museums and commercial galleries. On Monday (Nov. 3), its annual Fall Night once again celebrated that mission with an elegant dinner that drew a remarkable number of artists—far more than most New York institutions can claim—reminding everyone that artists remain firmly at the center of Dia’s vision.

Observer spotted an impressive roster of artists shaping the language of contemporary art today, including a particularly smiling and socially engaged Marina Abramović (currently preparing for a major exhibition at the upcoming Venice Biennale), alongside Doug AItken, Tony Cokes, Mary Corman, Jung Hee Choi, N. Dash, Torkwase Dyson, Miles Greenberg, Rachel Harrison, Tehching Hsieh, EJ Hill, Anne Imhof, Suzanne Jackson, Vera Lutter, Nate Lowman, Jill Magid, Tyler Mitchell, Tiona Nekkia McClodden, Kent Monkman, Camille Norment, Precious Okoyomon, Nicolas Party, Howardena Pindell, Alan Ruiz, Martha Rosler, Gedi Sibony, Haim Steinbach, Amy Sillman, Pat Steir, Richard Tuttle, Cheyney Thompson and William T. Williams.

The evening began with a cocktail reception and exhibition viewing at Dia Chelsea, where guests admired 12 + 2—Duane Linklater’s first major U.S. commission. His monumental clay animal forms inhabited the space, evoking a primal connection to matter. These gigantic creatures seemed to emerge from an elemental prehistory, before and beyond civilization’s structural and rational constraints. In one of the rooms, a circular wall relief of swirling clay channeled a sense of cosmic gesture—an improvised cosmology unfolding in earthy motion, connecting the microcosm of human making with the broader entropic order that regulates all forces between energy and matter.

Guests then moved to 547 West 26th Street, where long, white linen-decked tables awaited. Dinner began with welcoming remarks from Nathalie de Gunzburg, chair of Dia’s board. Next, a radiant Jessica Morgan, Dia’s director, then took the dais. “Paris was a blast,” she said, beginning her speech with genuine enthusiasm following her just-concluded art week abroad, where she opened “Minimal” at La Bourse de Commerce in Paris. The show, a collaboration between the Pinault Collection and Dia, brought part of Dia’s holdings to Europe for the first time, pairing them with a rarely seen selection of works from the French magnate’s collection. The show celebrated the aesthetics and philosophy of Minimalism while tracing its global evolution and enduring influence.

The night’s honorees, Melvin Edwards and Meg Webster, both hold deep significance for Dia. Their concurrent presentations Upstate spotlight how each pioneering practice anticipated many of today’s most urgent artistic concerns. Artist Sanford Biggers delivered a heartfelt tribute to Edwards, reflecting on their shared Houston roots and the profound emotional and artistic bond between them. His remarks captured how Edwards has imbued the rigorous formalism of his welded metal assemblage—steel, chain, barbed wire, machine parts—with a uniquely human and political charge: abstract forms that pulse with the weight of history and memory, between oppression and liberation.

Next, architect Steven Holl paid homage to Webster, tracing how her practice infused Land Art and process-based sculpture with a prescient ecological consciousness. Merging nature and culture, matter and energy, her works embrace the entropic principle of impermanence and transformation while prompting reflection on sustainability and humanity’s relationship with the earth. Webster’s art—poised between the elemental and the formal, the human-shaped and the naturally evolving—feels particularly timely today, as she enjoys a long-overdue moment in the international spotlight, from Dia’s Beacon presentation to her installations currently on view in the frescoed rotunda of La Bourse de Commerce.

De Gunzburg (with her husband, Charles de Gunzburg) and Morgan were joined by trustees Sandra J. Brant, J. Patrick Collins, Carol Finley, Jahanaz Jaffer, Dana Su Lee, Sara Morishige and Cordy Ryman. The crowd also included collectors, philanthropists and cultural figures such as Amy Astley, Stewart Butterfield and Jen Rubio, Lynne Cooke, Lisa Dennison, Fairfax Dorn, Michael Fisch, Molly Gochman, Steven Holl, Stephanie Ingrassia, Hiroyuki Maki, Courtney J. Martin, Sukey Novogratz, Monique Péan, Loring Randolph, Scott Rothkopf, Axel Rüger, Salman Rushdie, Bernard and Almine Ruiz-Picasso, Olivier Sarkozy, Ivy Shapiro, Allan Schwartzman, Akio Tagawa, Ann Temkin, Helen and Peter Warwick and Sara Zewde.

And of course, no Dia gathering would be complete without members of the gallery world who have long supported the foundation’s mission: Paula Cooper, Lucas Cooper, Arne Glimcher, Alexander Gray, Carol Greene, Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn, José Kuri, Dominique Lévy, Alex Logsdail, Siniša Mačković, Ales Ortuzar, Sukanya Rajaratnam, Thaddaeus Ropac, Almine Rech-Picasso and Kara Vander Weg were all among the evening’s guests. Below, we offer a glimpse into the night’s most memorable moments.

Precious Okoyomon, Vidar Logi, Miles Greenberg and Marina Abramović

Dominique Lévy and Sanford Biggers

Steven Holl

Meg Webster

Howardena Pindell and Ann Temkin

Amy Astley

Molly Epstein and Hugh Hayden

Nicolas Party

Maynard Monrow, Julie Hillman and Lucas Cooper

Axel Rüger, Cathy Ho Lee and Scott Rothkopf

Arne Glimcher, Milly Glimcher and Bernard Ruiz-Picasso

Scott Rothkopf and Shelley Fox Aarons

Olivier Sarkozy, Eva Lorenzotti and Charles de Gunzburg

Eliza Ravelle-Chapuis, Michael Fisch, Brooke Lampley and Sukanya Rajaratnam

Li Xin and Thaddaeus Ropac

Marisa Murillo, Azikiwe Mohammed and Tiona Nekkia McClodden

Akio Tagawa and Karen LaGatta

Sarah Gavlak

David Israel, Maynard Monrow and Julie Hillman

Joost Elffers and Pat Steir

William T. Williams and Alexander Gray

Paul Richert-Garcia, David Lewis and Barry X Ball

Dana Lee and Heather Harmon

Vanessa Yoa and Brandon Chen

Maynard Monrow and Stephanie Ingrassia

Alex Magnuson, Jacob Proctor and Jillian Brodie

Tehching Hsieh and Hiroyuki Maki

Jessica Morgan