Early years Heiner Friedrich was a German art dealer with galleries in
Munich and
Cologne which showed artists such as Andy Warhol, Cy Twombly, Donald Judd, and Dan Flavin. In 1973, Friedrich moved his galleries to New York City at 141 Wooster Street, now the site of
The New York Earth Room. That year Friedrich traveled to Houston to visit the
Rothko Chapel where he met
Dominique de Menil's assistant
Helen Winkler and was reintroduced to her daughter
Philippa de Menil. Friedrich and Philippa de Menil would later both get divorces so they could marry each other in a 1979
Sufi ceremony and get a marriage license in 1982. Friedrich, Winkler, and Philippa de Menil founded Dia in 1974. Dia stayed away from press and was not well known through the '70s. The goal was for Dia to not have an identity and be a true "conduit" for the art works it was funding without adding themselves to it. An article by
Phoebe Hoban in
New York Magazine in 1985 called the foundation a "closely guarded secret" during this time period, references people calling it "the art Mafia," and notes that the organization didn't even have a letterhead.
Dick's Castle in
Garrison, New York (which was purchased for $1 million but later discovered was too expensive to renovate), and the Mercantile Exchange at 6 Harrison Street for Young and Zazeela to create
Dream House (Dia spent approximately $4 million on buying and renovating the building and gave Young and Zazeela a budget of $500,000 a year for upkeep and artmaking.) replete with Flavin light works and living quarters for
Sheikh Muzaffer Ozak al-Jerrahi, in a former firehouse at 155 Mercer Street. The opening of the Sufi lodge was a reflection of de Menil's recent conversion to the path of
Sufi Islam and later ascension as
spiritual guide to the
Nur Ashki Jerrahi Order of
New York City. Philippa de Menil's mother,
Dominique de Menil, stepped in, and installed Ashton Hawkins, an executive vice president at the
Metropolitan Museum, as Dia's chairman. Along with Hawkins, the new board members included
Lois de Menil,
John C. Evans, future United States Supreme Court justice
Stephen Breyer,
Margaret Douglas-Hamilton, and
Herbert Brownell. While Dia holds works by under 50 artists, Morgan focused new collecting on works by women and international artists to diversify the largely white and male collection. This push culminated in the acquisition of
Sun Tunnels by
Nancy Holt. Morgan also ended the drive to build a new building in Chelsea and instead focused on joining three buildings the Foundation already owns and using raised funds to support the endowment. A $78 million capital campaign was announced in June 2018 and the target was raised to $90 million in May 2019. When asked about this sudden change from building a new building to a much smaller scope of construction in an interview in
Artnet Morgan explained, "We're very different from the
Guggenheim or
MoMA, where we think of specific buildings as being the landmark institutions. Dia has always followed a different route, which was finding spaces where the artists could share their vision with us." A new gallery will open in
SoHo in a retail space Dia has rented out for 10 years, of gallery space at Dia Beacon will be opened, and the climate control systems for
The New York Earth Room and
The Broken Kilometer will be overhauled so the works can remain open all year. These physical updates to buildings Dia owns are planned to use less than 25% of the funds raised from the capital campaign. ==Locations and sites==