Dia Back in Chelsea

The Dia Art Foundation has announced that it will be returning to its old neighborhood, constructing a new building on West 22nd Street in Chelsea. Director Philippe Vergne said in a press release that the foundation wants "to build a 'dream house' for artists."

The 22nd Street location is already closely associated some major Dia pieces--like Dan Flavin's final work in fluorescent light, an untitled installation in the stairwells of 548 West 22nd.

Dia closed its first Chelsea outpost for repairs in 2004 and eventually had to sell the building. At the time, director Jeffrey Weiss told Eliot Brown that the foundation wanted "looking to reclaim a disused space, which is the way in which Dia has moved in the past, and not to build a new building." The 22nd Street building will be Dia's first new structure.

The scene has been through plenty of other changes, though.

"In the 1970s, '80s and '90s, Dia was a force to be reckoned with, and generally a force for good. In the hubble-bubble of the New York art world, they represented the values of the long duration," writes Time's Richard Lacayo. But, he notes, "the Chelsea that Dia is returning to is a different place from the one where it first settled 23 years ago."