Meg Webster Showcases The Relationship Between Nature and Art

Selections from throughout the artist’s career are on view now at Dia Beacon.

Meg Webster, Stick Spiral, 1986. © Meg Webster. Meg Webster, installation view, Dia Beacon, New York. Photo: Bill Jacobson Studio, New York. Courtesy of Dia Art Foundation.

Meg Webster brings together the natural elements in her one-person, long term exhibition of sculptures, on display at the Dia Art Foundation in Beacon, New York. 

Based out of New York City, Webster has been creating sculptures and installation art since the 1980s. Using a minimalist approach, she uses raw recycled materials and plays with the viewer’s senses of perception. Drawing inspiration from minimalism and the Land Art movement of the 1960s and ‘70s, Webster leads with the intention of preserving the natural world and reusing materials that are gifted to us by nature.

Meg Webster, Moss Bed, King, 1986. Courtesy of the artist and Paula Cooper Gallery, New York. © Meg Webster. Photo: Bill Jacobson Studio, New York. Courtesy of Dia Art Foundation.

The exhibition features nine large scale sculptures and marks Webster’s first show at Dia. Webster’s pieces activate scent, vision, and sound through the exploration of different ecosystems and use of natural materials. In her 1986 piece, Moss Bed, Webster created a lush square piece of greenery made up of moss; in 1990’s Wall of Beeswax, Webster sculpted a golden curving wall made entirely of fragrant beeswax. 

Throughout her career, Webster has used materials like sand, stones, and other organic materials to create installations that challenge the way we interact with art and nature. In 1998, she debuted Pool, a waist deep water installation located inside PS1 in Long Island City. The artwork featured a water pond accompanied by koi fish, large stones, plants, pumps, and a central waterfall. 

Meg Webster, Wall of Beeswax, 1990. © Meg Webster. Meg Webster, installation view, Dia Beacon, New York. Photo: Bill Jacobson Studio, New York. Courtesy of Dia Art Foundation.

The Dia exhibition is curated by co–department head Matilde Guidelli-Guidi, and curatorial assistant Liv Cuniberti. “The works presented in her long-term exhibition bring that impactful encounter with nature to Dia Beacon and reopen a dialogue with an earlier generation of Minimalist artists and peers” said Guidelli-Guidi.

The Dia Art Foundation was established in 1974, and this Spring, the foundation celebrated fifty years of artists and invention. The foundation has twelve locations and sites, three of which are located within the state of New York – Dia Chelsea, Dia Beacon and Dia Bridgehampton. They also have various sites in Utah, New Mexico, and Germany. Operating off of various changing commissions, long-term installations, and site-specific projects, the foundation focuses on the intersectionality of Land Art on a domestic and international level. 

The Meg Webster exhibit is a long term on view at Dia Beacon in Beacon, New York.