On perhaps the sunniest day of the year thus far, students of Masha Penteleyeva’s Art History class made a trek out to Beacon, NY: a small Hudson River Valley town land marked by a massive warehouse (formerly a Nabisco boxing factory) that has recently been re-appropriated into a home for a handful of America’s most important 1960s conceptual art works: the Dia collection. Wandering the seemingly endless halls for hours, students are seen here enjoying the vast exposition space that clearly contrasts those galleries we visit so often in the city: cramped, poorly lit, and fighting for space. Cathedral-high ceilings, vibrant country sunlight, and fresh cherry blossoms, the locale is ideal for displaying these massively scaled and revered works. Later, students were asked to review their trip and, according to Masha, many chose to write about the experience on the whole: both the journey north (winding along with the Hudson by train or car) and the exposition itself.
