Visiting Dia:Beacon ranks as one of my all-time favourite art museum experiences. I went up to Beacon with a friend in July last year, but visited the gallery by myself, wandering through the enormous halls alone for hours. The no-photo policy focused the mind on experiencing the work, and the tight selection of artists on show permanently focused my attention on examining what these artists were getting at with their endless exploration of a limited set of materials.

My favourite rooms were filled with John Chamberlain's crushed cars, colourful, delicate and - standing beside them, you quickly realise - inert, but deadly. I was suddenly aware of the force needed to crush them, a force I controlled every time I got behind a wheel. I became aware of the fragility of the car, and the automated, controlled, empowered culture it represents. Through the repetition of these forms around the huge hall, I became aware of the endless permutations to expression, of how demanding an idea can be on an artist, hurling itself against the mind again and again, seeking perfect synthesis. I'd seen a Chamberlain in the flesh before, at the Pompediou, but it didn't have this kind of effect. Andy Warhol's Shadows had a similar effect, the repetition raising questions about the hand of the artist, and how gesture (or the illusion of it) and colour strike your emotions.

I adored Dan Flavin and Robert Smithson's rooms, Joseph Beuys too, of course... there was also a temporary installation by Zoe Leonard, a work gathering and displaying 4000 postcards from Niagara Falls, which was compelling viewing, the kind of work that excites the imagination of any obsessive, historian or anyone interested in the way we mythologise the places and times we inhabit. An exceptional place filled with incredible work and just the right mood to contemplate it.