Why Joint Acquisitions May Be the Way Forward for Cash-Strapped Museums

It didn’t take long for visitors to Dia:Beacon to fall for Sam Gilliam’s vibrantly colored abstract painting Double Merge (1968), an enormous canvas cascading from the ceiling, when it went on display two years ago, on long-term loan from a private collector. “It is beloved by our audience,” said the museum’s head, Dia Art Foundation director Jessica Morgan, who herself was taken with the piece. “I think with so many things in Dia:Beacon, once you install them