Dia Chelsea is an art museum in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City and is operated by Dia Art Foundation. Opened in 1987 at 548 West 22nd Street as the Dia Center for the Arts, Dia Chelsea has since moved across the street to a series of connected buildings now consolidated at 537 West 22nd Street. It is one of the locations and sites the Dia Art Foundation manages. The Museum hosts longterm but temporary exhibitions dedicated to one or two artists at a time as well as associated artistic and educational programing.

The Dia Art Foundation was established in 1974 in New York City by Heiner Friedrich and Schlumberger heiress Philippa de Menil, who would later get married, as well as Helen Winkler. The goal of the foundation was to assist artists in the creation of projects with scales and scopes that the standard museum and gallery systems could not support. In its first decade the foundation focused on supporting large installations in the American West as well as patronizing several artists, included Donald Judd, Dan Flavin, and Walter De Maria, with stipends, studios, and archivists.

Previous to Dia opening a museum in Chelsea it supported a studio and exhibition space for the artist Robert Whitman in the neighborhood. This space was in use between 1979 and 1985 at 521 West 19th Street.

With the help of architect Richard Gluckman, Dia began renovating a four-story brick warehouse at 548 West 22nd Street to consolidated its program of exhibitions and expand its artistic programing. The building was particularly well suited for displays of art with 8,000 square feet of space on each floor, copious natural light from perimeter windows, a grid of supporting columns and a large freight elevator.

In October, 1987 the Dia Center for the Arts, opened as the first art museum in the Chelsea neighborhood. The first exhibits at the museum were by three German artists, Joseph Beuys, Blinky Palermo, and Imi Knoebel who each got an entire floor of the building dedicated to presenting their works in Dia's collection. These exhibits were followed by other long term exhibitions by artist such as Gerhard Richter, Bridget Riley, Brice Marden, and Jessica Stockholder. Through the 80's and early 90's Dia and the Kitchen were the sole arts art institutions in the neighborhood.

The building at 548 West 22nd Street became a model for how future Dia museum spaces would work with large spaces dedicated to single artists, or occasionally two artists in dialogue, showing work from Dia's collection and new large scale commissions.

In 2004, one year after Dia opened another museum, Dia Beacon, Dia closed the space at 548 West 22nd Street. Dia claimed this was due to the building not being able to handle the crowds it was drawing. When the Dia Center opened it attracted about 16,000 to 17,000 visitors a year. Before it closed for renovations in February 2004, attendance had grown to about 60,000. The extent of the repairs needed prompted the foundation to sell the building for $38.55 million in December 2007. Upon the closing of 548 West 22nd street, the site specific works in the building were disassembled and relocated.

In 1992 Dia bought 545 West 22nd Street, across the street from the Dia Center for the Arts. In 1997 Dia opened this building as a second gallery space on 22nd Street with an exhibition of the large scale Torqued Ellipses by Richard Serra that are now on view at Dia Beacon.