KEEP PLANNING – Noam Hessler

On the left side of the DIA Beacon in the far left hallway and the northmost room of the left-side square arrangement of rooms in the site’s front hall are four new works by a new artist. They arrived in Quarter 3 of 2025. One is a new permanent acquisition and the remaining three are site specific installations. Their names are Megalonyx Jeffersoni, Tarmac, Theseus Ⅰ, and Theseus Ⅱ. Megalonyx Jeffersoni (2008) is one of the older works by the new artist. The central node of Megalonyx Jeffersoni consists of an artistic recreation of an indistinct ground sloth, six feet tall and eight feet long, created at the request of the new artist by Blue Rhino Studio in Minnesota and carefully moved across the country to the new artist’s studio in Burbank, California, where it sat in a warehouse before being displayed at the Gagosian Gallery on Howard Street in San Francisco in the May of 2018, before being moved to one of the new artist’s warehouses (in Chelsea) prior to its purchase by the DIA Foundation in 2022, which ultimately led to its display in the DIA Beacon in Q3 of 2025. Attached to the ground sloth, emanating from its back, face, arms, legs, and tail, are approximately 380,000 six-foot long silver filaments that are an eighth of an inch in width. These filaments were painstakingly arranged by the new artist so that they emerge radially around the dummy sloth, making it rather difficult to see. Parts of it can be glimpsed through the mass of filaments. Tarmac (2025) consists primarily of a thirty-foot long painting in black tar done along the wall of the DIA Beacon’s leftmost hallway. The painting was painted by the new artist with her hands. The painting oscillates in height, with its shortest part (near the end of Tarmac) being five inches tall, and its tallest (at the exact middle point of Tarmac) being seven feet tall. Arranged at five points along the length of the painting, pressed against the wall, are freestanding piles of gravel, each composed of approximately seventy stones. The third and final part of Tarmac is a loud sound that plays at the twenty-seven mark of every hour. This sound plays from speakers arranged along the DIA Beacon’s leftmost hallway. The sound consists of rumbling constructed from field recordings of buffalo, wildebeest, and cattle in motion. The sound lasts two minutes and forty-seven seconds. Theseus Ⅰ (2025) is composed of four parts. It and Theseus Ⅱ are in a single room in the DIA Beacon (the northmost room of the left-side square arrangement of rooms in the site’s front hall), separated by a tall, solid sheet of plastic. This sheet of plastic is listed in the laminated catalogue as Censor (2025), but in artist talks the new artist does not refer to it as an art object, and states that this name was given to the wall by the curators, not her. She does not claim Censor and it is not counted here as part of either Theseus. Theseus Ⅰ consists of a wooden lectern in the center of its side of the room, a crocheted sculpture of a dead bull laying on its side, placed one foot away from the lectern, a loaded Smith & Wesson handgun, placed upon the lectern, and eight Ring cameras arranged around the room: two placed on each wall, and two placed on Censor. There are no museum staff in the room with Theseus Ⅰ. The laminated wall label instructs that museum visitors are allowed to do whatever they like with the handgun, so long as they keep it within the room. The handgun contains a single special bullet that will always jam the handgun when the handgun is fired. Once the handgun is fired museum staff arrive in the room to retrieve the handgun from whoever fired it. The handgun is replaced the next morning with a new special bullet inside it before the DIA Beacon opens. The crocheted sculpture of the dead bull is eight feet long, seven feet wide, and four feet tall at its highest point. The Ring cameras are all off. Theseus Ⅱ (2025) is composed of five parts. It and Theseus Ⅰ are in a single room in the DIA Beacon (the northmost room of the left-side square arrangement of rooms in the site’s front hall), separated by Censor. Theseus Ⅱ consists of a wooden lectern in the center of its side of the room, a crocheted sculpture of a dead bull laying on its side, placed one foot away from the lectern, a loaded Smith & Wesson handgun, placed upon the lectern, eight Ring cameras arranged around the room: two placed on each wall, and two placed on Censor, and two museum staff. Both bulls in the Theseus sculptures were assembled in 2016, for a piece of art about bullfighting: they have since been reused. Museum visitors must fill out paperwork in advance (on the DIA Foundation’s website) to fire the handgun. Visitors must pass a short psychological evaluation test, and provide notarized evidence that they have completed some form of firearm training. The two museum staff instruct visitors to fire the handgun into the crocheted sculpture of a bull. The handgun contains three bullets at any point. The museum staff are provided with ammunition on their persons to ensure the handgun may contain three bullets at any point. All authorized visitors may fire only three shots, only into the bull. The handgun is never cleaned. The crocheted sculpture of the dead bull is eight feet long, seven feet wide, and four feet tall at its highest point. The eyes of the Ring cameras contain no life.

*** Noam Hessler is an American poet. They recently released a book called Officeparks. They live in New York and Vermont, and can be reached online via Twitter @poetryaccnt1518. 7 October 2025