It’s been a tough year for the Dia Art Foundation, where Lynne Cooke has been a curator since 1991. First the director, Michael Govan, left to take the helm at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, then vice chair Ann Tenenbaum departed, followed by Leonard Riggio, the chairman of the board of trustees and Dia’s principal benefactor. Dia’s old Chelsea home on 22nd street sits empty (poor air conditioning was never a good reason to abandon that wonderful space), and its potential replacement in the meatpacking district still hasn’t been secured. Still, Dia:Beacon, the sublime 31-acre outpost one hour up the Hudson River, continues to be a beloved new pilgrimage for Manhattanites since it opened in 2003. They’re even considering a 70,000-square-foot expansion of this already gargantuan space. This year Cooke curated a well-received show at Beacon by Agnes Martin and received an award for curatorial excellence from Bard College. Together with Dia, she provides a welcome bit of calm relief from the normal museum frenzy in New York.