From the mid-1960s onward, Keith Sonnier combined many materials in work that placed concept, process, and duration first. The Dia Beacon exhibition is his first posthumous museum show in the United States and gathers pieces made between 1968 and 1970. In those years he rethought sculpture’s tactile, spatial, and temporal character, moving from what he called “floor-to-wall” works to installations that wrap architecture in light and color. He favored industrial substances he described as “psychologically loaded”—cloth and satin as well as neon, latex, and flocking—chosen for their associations. Often made on site, the sculptures and environments on view recover the opening phase of his practice and its core interests: the interweaving of matter, light, time, and space, and the production of psychological and sensual effects through process and form.Near the start of the 1970s, his neon experiments left the wall and tested light and color as volume. Dis-Play II (1970) occupies a darkened room with fluorescent pigments, foam masses, and mixed artificial lights, saturating the space with sensory input.

Keith Sonnier: Dis-Play II, 1970 / Dia Beacon. September 14, 2026.