DAVID DIXON’S LATEST SITE-SPECIFIC ART PROJECT: YOU CAN BANK ON IT

A MIXED-MEDIA WORK INSTALLED INSIDE AN OLD BANK BUILDING EVOKES HISTORY AND ESCHEWS RACISM

by Edward M. Gómez

David Dixon robbed a bank.

More precisely, he borrowed the history-flavored spirit of a former bank building’s stately interior and used it as part of the raw material for one of his newest, site-specific art projects, which he realized earlier this summer in Beacon, New York, a small town on the west bank of the Hudson River, about 55 miles (88.5 kilometers) north of New York City.

David Dixon, “Bank. Church. Cathouse. (The Sins of the Father),” 2022, mixed-media, site-specific artwork installed in a former bank building in Beacon, New York, July 2-17, 2022. Photo courtesy of Cathouse Proper

In 2003, the Dia Art Foundation’s opening in Beacon of a renovated industrial building as a home for its collection of modern art dating back to the 1960s put the town on the map as a significant satellite of the New York City art world. Today, it boasts many commercial art galleries of its own.