Dia Art Foundation celebrated the big 3-0 Friday night. It’s an exciting time for Dia, with last year’s opening of Dia: Beacon (largely thanks to the philanthropy and vision of the chairman of its board, Leonard Riggio) and a retrospective at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., for Dan Flavin, an artist it nurtured.

Dia was one of Chelsea’s earliest proponents and paved the way for the galleries that pepper the neighborhood. Dia also supported site-specific earthwork, which flummoxed traditional museums.

“We’ve been pretty radical. It’s fantastic that we have taken so many risks, and not only have survived, but thrived,” the director of Dia, Michael Govan, said.

“It seems to me that Dia has never looked stronger and more vital,” said the chief curator of painting and sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art, John Elderfield. He lauded “the three jewels in Dia’s crown,” the earthworks in the southwest (such as Robert Smithson’s “Spiral Jetty” in Utah), the outpost in Beacon, N.Y., and the exhibition space in Chelsea (which is closed at the moment).

He said both the Museum of Modern Art and Dia are devoted to works that are “modern” and “experimental.”

The uptown/downtown crowd included Nan Kempner, Henry and Marie-Josee Kravis, and Sotheby’s auctioneers James Niven and Tobias Meyer, as well as Yvonne Force Villareal, Anh Duong, and Amy Sacco (the after-party was at one of Ms. Sacco’s boites, Bungalow 8).

Also on the scene were gallery owners (Arne, Milly, Marc, and Andrea Glimcher, Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn, Barbara Goldstone, Lucy Mitchell-Innes, David Nash, and Howard Read), curators (Peter Galassi, Thelma Golden), and artists (Gregory Crewdson, Moico Yaker).

Two important figures in the room were the head of Art Basel Miami Beach, Samuel Keller, and its New York publicist, Sara Fitz-Maurice (married to gallery owner Perry Rubenstein). The fair takes place December 2-5 and at Dia many were comparing plans for their trips to Florida: “The invitations are stacking up,” said the executive editor of ArtNEWS, Robin Cembalest.

Dinner (lamb, brussels sprouts, rutebaga puree) was served in the Dia space designed by Richard Gluckman, which beamed with the glow of red neon lights. David Byrne provided entertainment, a “presentational theater” piece on PowerPoint – a subject he first wrote about in Wired magazine, and has talked about on NPR and at the Los Angeles County Museum Institute for Arts and Culture.

Overall, the night’s tone was subdued – on account of the rain, the cold, or another condition one might call a philanthropist’s seasonal affected disorder.

Over the past couple of months, there have been dozens of fundraisers every night.

Just take a look at the schedule of the art-loving couple Thomas Lee and Ann Tenenbaum. Ms. Tenenbaum is the vice chairman of Dia’s board, and also serves on the board of the Studio Museum in Harlem. Mr. Lee is on the boards of the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of Art. Over the past month, the couple attended parties for all of these museums – and many other institutions, such as Jazz at Lincoln Center and the New York Public Library.

The money raised is significant. Dia’s fund-raiser took in $800,000; the Whitney’s, more than $2 million, the Studio Museum in Harlem’s, $1.5 million.

The gala for Jazz at Lincoln Center’s new Rose Hall raised $3.2 million.

Of course, philanthropists’ seasonal disorder usually develops right before the holidays – just in time for spending to be diverted to gifts of another kind.