New York, NY, August 30, 2022 – In 2020 Dia premiered Party/After-Party (2020) by acclaimed Detroit-based techno DJ and producer Carl Craig. This work is Craig’s first commission for an art institution and culminates a five-year engagement with Dia. The institution announced the acquisition of this large-scale installation and sound work in December 2021.

Party/After-Party (2020) lives on beyond the exhibition at Dia Beacon in this set of two vinyl LPs. The album includes four tracks of studio versions of the artist’s commission and live recordings from Dia Beacon that highlight the acoustics of the exhibition space. The LPs are supplemented by a sixteen-page booklet of liner notes, which include an introduction to the project by exhibition curator Kelly Kivland; a note on the work’s technical components by Dia’s manager of exhibition technology Randy Gibson; a consideration of the work in light of Black musical traditions and Detroit by music writer, media theorist, and curator DeForrest Brown, Jr.; and a reflection on the commission by Peter L’Official, associate professor of literature and director of American Studies at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.

“Carl Craig’s Party/After-Party at Dia Beacon was revelatory for all who experienced it. Deftly marrying the tenets of minimal art and techno, Craig transformed the lower level of the museum into a soundscape that inspired both melancholy and euphoria. I am so pleased that this work can now also be experienced by the public at home,” said Jessica Morgan, Dia’s Nathalie de Gunzburg Director.

This release is made possible, in part, by generous support from Bottega Veneta. The LP is distributed by Craig’s Planet E Communications.

The LP will be available for purchase from Dia’s online bookshop and at Dia Beacon and Dia Chelsea from September 13.

This release will be marked by a special listening party and LP signing event with Carl Craig at Dia Chelsea on September 13, 6–8 pm. The event is free but an RSVP is required. Find out more here.

About Carl Craig

Carl Craig began his career as a DJ and producer in the late 1980s and soon became an influential figure on the Detroit techno scene. He is frequently acknowledged as one of electronic music’s most wide-ranging artists, and he continues to push the boundaries of the field by integrating it with genres such as classical music, jazz, soul, and world beat, among many others. A Grammy-nominated composer, Craig has released numerous recordings on his own Planet E record label, which celebrates its thirtieth anniversary this year. He has also worked under various aliases and explored an even greater range of sounds through his celebrated remix and production work with a large cast of collaborators.

Craig’s notable recent projects include the release of Sessions (2008), a two-disc mix that reimagines over fifteen years of his musical catalogue. For the album Versus (2017), Craig collaborated with pianist Francesco Tristano, French orchestra Les Siècles, conductor François-Xavier Roth, and instrumentalist Moritz von Oswald. In 2019, at Royal Albert Hall in London, Craig collaborated with Chineke! Orchestra to perform the track “Versus” alongside others such as “At Les,” “The Melody,” and “Sandstorms.”

In 2020 Craig’s commission by Dia Art Foundation to create a sound installation in dialogue with the unique architecture of Dia Beacon was realized in Beacon, New York. In 2021 he collaborated with Italian couture house Bottega Veneta’s creative director, Daniel Lee, to create Runway, a series of site-specific sonic sculptures and minimal light installations in the subterranean parking garage of the historic Michigan Building Theater in Detroit. In early 2022 the Carl Craig Synthesizer Ensemble partnered with New York’s Carnegie Hall for the Afrofuturism Festival, a citywide festival exploring music, visual arts, science fiction, and technology through the lens of Black cultures. Also in 2022, for the 59th Venice Biennale, Craig performed a special set in the naval complex Tese 98, in celebration of artist Stan Douglas’s participation in the Canada Pavilion.

Craig is known too for his deep commitment to his hometown of Detroit, both as an admired civic leader and a strong ambassador of local culture. He served as co-creator and artistic director of Detroit’s annual Movement Electronic Music Festival in 2000, 2001, and 2010. He also founded the Carl Craig Foundation, which supports emerging local talent through music-education scholarships and professional development and training opportunities.

Dia Art Foundation 

Taking its name from the Greek word meaning “through,” Dia was established in 1974 with the mission to serve as a conduit for artists to realize ambitious new projects, unmediated by overt interpretation and uncurbed by the limitations of more traditional museums and galleries. Dia’s programming fosters contemplative and sustained consideration of a single artist’s body of work and its collection is distinguished by the deep and long-standing relationships that the nonprofit has cultivated with artists whose work came to prominence particularly in the 1960s and ’70s. 

In addition to Dia Beacon, Dia Bridgehampton, and Dia Chelsea, Dia maintains and operates a constellation of commissions, long-term installations, and site-specific projects, notably focused on Land art, nationally and internationally. These include: 

• Walter De Maria’s The New York Earth Room (1977) and The Broken Kilometer (1979), Max Neuhaus’s Times Square (1977), and Joseph Beuys’s 7000 Eichen (7000 Oaks, inaugurated in 1982 and ongoing), all of which are located in New York
• De Maria’s The Lightning Field (1977) in western New Mexico
• Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty (1970) in the Great Salt Lake, Utah
• Nancy Holt’s Sun Tunnels (1973–76) in the Great Basin Desert, Utah
• De Maria’s The Vertical Earth Kilometer (1977) in Kassel, Germany

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For additional information or materials, contact:

Hannah Gompertz, Dia Art Foundation, hgompertz@diaart.org, +1 212 293 5598

Melissa Parsoff, Parsoff Communications, mparsoff@parsoff-communications.com, +1 516 445 5899 (US press inquiries)  

Sam Talbot,  sam@sam-talbot.com, +44 (0) 772 5184 630 (international press inquiries)