SUBCONSCIOUS CONNOISSEUR BY CHRISTOPHER DAISH, MAN ABOUT TOWN NEW YORK CITY ARTS, CULTURE, AND NITTY-GRITTY: EP. 1
A Trip to Beacon, NY
It’s hard to ignore the visionary grandeur of Grand Central station, even for a seasoned New Yorker attempting to swim upstream through the oblivious tight-knit tourists en route for platform 212. In need of sustenance, the decision to grab a quick bagel and cup of Joe, a NYC breakfast of champions, turns into an ordeal. What a cluster fuck; hung over twenty-some-odd in search of Powerade, foreigners clumsily thumbing through billfolds, misdirected pastries finding confused surrogate owners. I exhale; on the brink of meltdown, I find the platform and my porthole to freedom. Immediately I am reminded of the words I uttered a decade ago, “Find a way to escape the city every month.” As the train grinds away from my New York minute spent in hell, I ponder the lives of the mole people living underground in the sewers and subways, isolated from society, bare bones, down and out, free. Tension begins to exit my body with every breath. Thoughts spent analyzing the intensity of thought promoted by life in the city dissipate with every Podunk town that pops up along my Metro North escape route. About 25 minutes deep and the pressures of the city are as fleeting as the snow geese frolicking amid their surreal decadence.
As the layers of the onion unravel, you soon realize why people move upstate. Shimmering golden hues dance innocently with snow-covered wedding cake terrain, frozen ponds symmetrically refract fairy tale candor, and trees stretch as far as one can see. Every blink of the eye is a postcard. Access to the sky again, dreams no longer curtailed by concrete permanence. In a few moments I recount the past decade spent in Manhattan and with great clarity — I worked as a model, writer, managed restaurants and nightclubs; I painted, I engaged in a variety of hedonism. Indeed, a colorful landscape that conjures a level of angst. So, I return to the comforts of the kaleidoscopic flickering of pastels and light that stitch together the outside world. Clickety-clack. I slump lower in my chair and sleep.
Located in southwest corner of Dutchess County in the Mid-Hudson region, Beacon, New York is home to approximately 16,000 people. Shrouded in history, Beacon houses the Tioronda mansion, the imposing pre-Civil War estate of General Joseph Howland, Civil War hero and philanthropist. This mansion became a psychiatric hospital in 1915 and was later sold to investor and art collector John L. Stewart in 2003. Beacon is also where you’ll find Dia: Beacon. Occupying a 300,000-square-foot former Nabisco printing factory, the space was donated to the Dia Foundation in 1999 by International Paper. Built in 1929, the early twentieth century industrial design meshes brick, concrete, steel, and glass creating sleek lines and open sweeping spaces. 34,000-square-feet of skylights create a glasshouse type feel and casts natural light onto the artworks creating a feel of buoyant permanence. The collection assembled in the 1970s and early 1980s by Dia’s founders, Philippa de Menil and Heiner Friedrich, features works by artists Donal Judd, Dan Flavin and Andy Warhol to name a few. In anticipation of Dia:Beacon the collection was expanded encompassing influential artists of the same era such as Sol LeWitt, Gerhard Richter, and Richard Serra.
Devoid of an agenda I float daintily between rooms absorbing piece after piece that are each emotive in a different way. On the top floor, I find Louise Bourgeois’ eerily comforting Spider sculpture, and after much wonder, seek solace in the “Torqued Ellipse” minimalist steel sculptors of Richard Serra. Cast in the shadows and enormity of these pieces, I feel safe for the first time. There is no doubt that country air has gone to my head, as I feel at complete ease. The the call of the city beckons. I decide to jump on the 3:39 express back to Grand Central to Manhattan. As I begin drift off, out of the corner of my eye I catch a glimpse of Bannerman Castle, the remnants of a Scotsman’s fortress used as a weapons arsenal. Feeling slightly displaced, edges of reality frayed, I think, maybe this day was a dream all along.
- Christopher Daish
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