NEW YORK CITY 2026: MAGAZZINO ITALIAN ART MUSEUM, DIA BEACON, AND A HOME-COOKED MEAL

 May 30, 2026

On my second day in New York, A and M had a great out-of-city excursion planned. We started by catching a train in the iconic Grand Central Station. If you look closely at the picture of A and me on the left, you'll see a red dot on the ceiling. It's a heart-shaped mylar balloon that floated there months ago (maybe Valentine's Day?) and hasn't wanted to return to earth! Those things last forever.

We took a 1.25 hour train to Magazzino Italian Art Museum in Cold Spring, New York, a village about 50 miles north of Manhattan with a population of approximately 2,000 and located across the Hudson River from West Point.

The museum, which contains a collection of postwar and contemporary Italian art owned by married art collectors Nancy Olnick and Giorgio Spanu, opened in 2017 at the site of a former computer chip factory (Magazzino means "warehouse" in Italian). It consists of two buildings, the original warehouse and a second building opened in 2023.

I tend to go a bit crazy in an art museum. I like to take a lot of pictures that I can then examine in more detail on my computer at home. Here are a few of the photos I took of my favorite pieces.

They had an exhibit by the Italian artist Alighiero Boetti that I especially liked. On first glance, you see a mercator map of the world.

But look closer and you'll see the world depicted by the national flag of each country. The embroidery for this and other works by the same artist was completed by Afghan women in refugee camps.

A series of embroidered pieces by Boetti are called Tutto ("Everything").

Close up:

Here is another piece in the series:

Close up:

I didn't get the name of this one, but I love the interlocking letters and the grid created by phrases written in a Middle Eastern language.

This must have been part of a collection, but It's the only newspaper front page I took a picture of. Dated April 9, 1973, the main headline announces the death of Pablo Picasso.

The Magazzino gallery is itself a piece of art:

Hmmm...what is that caribou head doing up by the skylights?

And even more puzzling, what does it have to do with the Fibonacci Sequence strung up in neon lights?

Aha! Here is one I understand! J for Judy, right?

Rags from the carwash? A laundry line? Nope. This is the Italian flag, here named Stracci Italiani (2007), by Italian artist Michelangelo Pistoletto.

The natural and landscaped grounds are worth a fair amount of time as well. The foundation grows a lot of organic vegetables that become part of the farm-to-table menu offered by the onsite Italian restaurant.

  

Speaking of the restaurant, it is called Café Silvia, and the menu changes depending on the season. I had delicious polenta topped with asparagus and a creamy sauce, followed by a very good raspberry mousse dessert.

Magazzino is also known for its herd of endangered Sardinian donkeys. The original herd, brought to Magazzino in 2017, included one male donkey and four females. The herd has grown to as many as fifteen donkeys.They were very active when we were there.

Our second destination was Dia Beacon, located (appropriately) in Beacon, New York, a town of approximately 14,000 people located about 7 miles from Cold Spring. We called an Uber for the relatively short ride.

The Dia Art Foundation runs three museums and nine sites, including the Spiral Jetty on the Great Salt Lake in Utah. On a previous visit to New York, we had visited the Dia Bridgehampton location in February 2020, a museum that focuses on the works of Dan Flavin. On my next trip to NYC, I need to visit the third Dia museum in Chelsea.

The Dia Beacon site is a former Nabisco box printing factory built in 1929. 

It comprises 160,000 square feet, which makes it one of the largest modern and contemporary art exhibition spaces in the United States and allows for large-scale installations like this colorful one below: The Equator Has Moved by Renée Green. See the museum's description of this work here.

My photo stash is missing some of the key work in this museum. A lot of the work was hard to capture with my phone just because of its scope. There was a display, for example, of the Date Paintings by Japanese artist On Kawara. See samples and a description here.

I love Louise Bourgeois, but primarily for her ginormous spider sculptures. It was fun to see some of her other work. Even her tabletop sculptures (left) are immensely tactile. The work on the right is Avenza Revisted (1968-9), but to me it looks like a giant sea creature from my worst nightmare.

Aha! One of her iconic spiders!  You can't really understand the creepiness of this arachnid . . . 

. . . until you put a couple of people next to it! It is huge!

Speaking of huge, Richard Serra is known for his grand-scale sculptures. I've seen his work at MoMA in New York City and at LACMA in Los Angeles. His piece at Dia Beacon is called The Union of the Torus and the Sphere (2001). Made of steel, it looks like a curved ship hull. What struck me is how it is almost wedged into the space, emphasizing its size and power. The long hallway in front of it gives the impression that it is moving towards the viewer. 

There are several works by Robert Smithson, the sculptor whose most important work is Spiral Jetty (1970) in the Great Salt Lake. Map of Broken Glass (Atlantis) is a 1969 piece permanentaly housed in this museum. The jagged shards of glass are arranged in a way that makes them resemble a topographical map. (Can you imagine MOVING it to another location?)

Another work by Smithson is Leaning Mirror (1969). The manufactured mirror is partially buried in and juxtaposed against a mound of sand. The mirror reflects the ceiling grid, creating an interesting contrast of the natural and man-made worlds.

Moving on, this is an exhibit that needs a very large, well-lit space, and the Dia is perfect for it. Shadows (1978-79) by Andy Warhol consists of 102 canvases made with film, photography, silkscreening, and painting. The canvases were hung edge-to-edge in a tight line around the room's circumferrence. This is not one of their permanent exhibits and has already left Dia Beacon.

The final exhibits that I am highlighting here are some of the most bizarre performance art pieces (I'm not even sure that's what they should be called) that I have ever seen. The artist, Tehching "Sam" Hsieh, was born in Taiwan in 1950 but made his way to New York City in 1974. He made what is called "durational art," which is some kind of performance involving some kind of a hardship that extends over a period of time. From 1978 to 1986 he completed five one-year performances. 

The first performance, Cage Piece, involved Hsieh being sealed up an 11' 6" x 9' 8" cell in his studio in solitary confinement and with a commitment to not talk to anyone, read, write, listen to the radio, or watch TV for one year. His only supplies were a wash basin, lights, a pail, and a single bed. He had one friend who took care of his food, clothing, and waste, and who took a single photograph of him every day to document the project. His commitment letter, the photos, and the cell are on display.

Next was his One Year Performance 1980-1981 (Time Clock Piece) that involved him punching a time clock and taking a self-portrait on the hour, every hour, for 365 consecutive days. Yup, that is 8,760 (24 x 365) pictures, all lined up on a wall.

Next up, his One Year Performance 1981-1982 (Outdoor Piece) involved him wandering around NYC outside for a year with just a sleeping bag and clothes. He could not go inside any kind of a building. He did get arrested midway through the performance and was confined to a cell for about 15 hours, but he resumed his project as soon as he was let go.

One Year Performance 1983-1984 (Rope Piece) involved tying himself at the waist to a woman friend, another performance artist named Linda Montano. The 8-foot rope kept them in the same room, and they were not allowed to touch each other. 

Finally, in One Year Performance 1985-1896 (No Art Piece), Hsieh vowed not to create, talk about, look at, or do anything related to art. I have no idea why the word "will" is blacked out.

After those five durational art performance pieces, Hsieh came up with the Thirteen Year Plan 1986-1999. During this time he created art but did not show it publicly or sell it. When he finished on December 31, 1999, he declared that he was done creating art.

Wow.

Well, that was the end of our art museum-ing, so we headed back to Manhattan on the train. A and M had made the best kind of plans for dinner--they cooked! I felt incredibly spoiled by a diiner of roasted peppers, a wonderful green salad, and delicious baked fish, not to mention the beautiful setting that included candles and fresh flowers. I was very impressed. Yeah, I could get used to the younger generation cooking for me.