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THE STRANGEST LITTLE ART HOUSE IN TEXAS
Part II
Finally, the sign I'm waiting for, just on the outskirts of town. It's a billboard that reads: "Marfa is what the West was." Environmentally speaking, that's probably true. But socially and culturally? Not a chance.
While at first glance, this might look like any other desert town, Marfa has amazingly become a major center for contemporary art, lauded throughout international art circles as a must-see destination. And the reputation is not undeserved: it boasts a vast array of installations by some of the world's greatest contemporary artists, such as Dan Flavin, John Chamberlain and Richard Long. It's a magnet for artists and writers, who arrive to live and work here, and the streets ring with the clip-clopping of designer heels as the town is engulfed by artsy city folk who come to coo over the works set outdoors against the dramatic desert backdrop.
Marfa's unique character becomes obvious upon pulling into the Thunderbird Hotel's parking lot. The twenty-somethings who work here are mostly Austin transplants with an unexpected "I'm with the band" look—groovy hair, piercings and tattoos. I'm sure the cowboys who established this town in 1881 didn't have them. And the only take-away joint in town is the Food Shark, an old aluminum-clad truck from which the vendors (a part-time photographer and an artist/musician) dispense their ever-popular "Marfalafel" falafels.
Marfa's ability to make permanent the stay of those who are just passing through is most clearly illustrated by the arrival of the godfather of Marfa, Donald Judd, from New York in 1972. Judd—who died in 1994—was one of America's most important post-war artists and the arts legacy that he left Marfa is incredible. When he first chose this part of the world to exhibit his works, he did it because he was in love with the terrain and found the desert a source of inspiration. He often used to drive out in his 1969 Land Rover into the desert to collect rocks, spearheads and snake skeletons to inspire his work.
While almost every other building, artist and gallery seems to have some sort of link to Judd, it's the Chinati Foundation that is his greatest legacy. The Chinati Foundation is the place that put Marfa on the map. Housed on an old U.S. Army base, Chinati is home to the largest permanent collection of contemporary art in the world, where each artist's work is installed in a separate building.
"100 Untitled Works in Mill Aluminum" is probably the most famous of Donald Judd's work and is housed in two converted artillery sheds. I'd seen pictures of these a million times, but they don't do justice to the real thing—sounds clichéd, but it's true. It's almost impossible to explain the glass-like quality the boxes assume when hit by light.
The feeling of the installation is given extra depth when I discover the building itself was constructed during the 1940s to house 200 German prisoners of war, who had been captured in North Africa (because, according to the Geneva Convention, they had to be kept in the climate in which they were captured).
The sides of the buildings are glass, giving a clear view of Judd's cement boxes scattered not-so-randomly in a huge field of tall grasses. Walking among them, there's no sound except the crunch of shoes on the worn dirt path, the wind rustling through the tall grasses and the occasional truck on a nearby road. And even if you aren't into art or don't understand the box thing, it's almost impossible to stand in that field and not feel something. That absolute stillness—perhaps especially for me, as a New Yorker—is pretty radical.
But it's perhaps not as radical as the "other" art installation many people think of when mentioning Marfa: Prada Marfa. This structure by Scandinavian art duo Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset looks exactly like a smaller-scale version of a Prada store—complete with backlit displays of bags and shoes. But, unlike the regular version, it's permanently locked so you can't walk in and buy anything, which is cruel and unusual punishment if you ask me.
The installation was designed to be left to the ravages of nature, and will deteriorate over time. But not so long ago, someone tried to expedite that destructive process and vandalized the "store," stealing a bunch of the "left foot only" shoes and bags. The site has now been completely restored, with new items on display—but if you look carefully, you can still see shards of broken glass inside.
First on the crime scene that day was Sheriff Tom Roberts of Jeff Davis County. The cowboy hat, boots, gun and badge make him the personification of what a Texan sheriff should be and, as such, he has the look of someone who doesn't have much time for an art exhibit in the style of a Prada shoe store.
"I think that most people around here think it's kinda dumb," he chuckles with a nonchalant look back at the installation. "But I don't think that the locals would have attacked it. It's more likely to have been a jealous artist. I joked at the time that the suspect probably only had one leg and that he'd stolen the bags to help him balance. I guess it's kinda weird, but then we have our fair share of strange things around here. For a while we had reports of a chupacabra around these parts. According to the legend, it's a vampire that attacks goats and livestock, and we had a few reports some years back, but we never caught anything." I suspect he thinks it's got something to do with the artists, too.
My question is, what happened to the Prada shoes that weren't stolen? I'm told they are with the site's caretaker, Boyd Elder.
I track him down at his house and find a 63 year old clad head to toe in black clothing with tinted black Persol glasses and long, thinning hair. He looks more like an aging rocker than a contemporary artist and part-time rancher. Although he was born in Valentine, a town only a few miles from Marfa, Boyd has lived in New York, Hawaii and Los Angeles—hanging out with Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson back in the day, and illustrating several Eagles album covers before finding his way back to this part of the world.
While at first glance, this might look like any other desert town, Marfa has amazingly become a major center for contemporary art, lauded throughout international art circles as a must-see destination. And the reputation is not undeserved: it boasts a vast array of installations by some of the world's greatest contemporary artists, such as Dan Flavin, John Chamberlain and Richard Long. It's a magnet for artists and writers, who arrive to live and work here, and the streets ring with the clip-clopping of designer heels as the town is engulfed by artsy city folk who come to coo over the works set outdoors against the dramatic desert backdrop.
Marfa's unique character becomes obvious upon pulling into the Thunderbird Hotel's parking lot. The twenty-somethings who work here are mostly Austin transplants with an unexpected "I'm with the band" look—groovy hair, piercings and tattoos. I'm sure the cowboys who established this town in 1881 didn't have them. And the only take-away joint in town is the Food Shark, an old aluminum-clad truck from which the vendors (a part-time photographer and an artist/musician) dispense their ever-popular "Marfalafel" falafels.
Marfa's ability to make permanent the stay of those who are just passing through is most clearly illustrated by the arrival of the godfather of Marfa, Donald Judd, from New York in 1972. Judd—who died in 1994—was one of America's most important post-war artists and the arts legacy that he left Marfa is incredible. When he first chose this part of the world to exhibit his works, he did it because he was in love with the terrain and found the desert a source of inspiration. He often used to drive out in his 1969 Land Rover into the desert to collect rocks, spearheads and snake skeletons to inspire his work.
While almost every other building, artist and gallery seems to have some sort of link to Judd, it's the Chinati Foundation that is his greatest legacy. The Chinati Foundation is the place that put Marfa on the map. Housed on an old U.S. Army base, Chinati is home to the largest permanent collection of contemporary art in the world, where each artist's work is installed in a separate building.
"100 Untitled Works in Mill Aluminum" is probably the most famous of Donald Judd's work and is housed in two converted artillery sheds. I'd seen pictures of these a million times, but they don't do justice to the real thing—sounds clichéd, but it's true. It's almost impossible to explain the glass-like quality the boxes assume when hit by light.
The feeling of the installation is given extra depth when I discover the building itself was constructed during the 1940s to house 200 German prisoners of war, who had been captured in North Africa (because, according to the Geneva Convention, they had to be kept in the climate in which they were captured).
The sides of the buildings are glass, giving a clear view of Judd's cement boxes scattered not-so-randomly in a huge field of tall grasses. Walking among them, there's no sound except the crunch of shoes on the worn dirt path, the wind rustling through the tall grasses and the occasional truck on a nearby road. And even if you aren't into art or don't understand the box thing, it's almost impossible to stand in that field and not feel something. That absolute stillness—perhaps especially for me, as a New Yorker—is pretty radical.
But it's perhaps not as radical as the "other" art installation many people think of when mentioning Marfa: Prada Marfa. This structure by Scandinavian art duo Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset looks exactly like a smaller-scale version of a Prada store—complete with backlit displays of bags and shoes. But, unlike the regular version, it's permanently locked so you can't walk in and buy anything, which is cruel and unusual punishment if you ask me.
The installation was designed to be left to the ravages of nature, and will deteriorate over time. But not so long ago, someone tried to expedite that destructive process and vandalized the "store," stealing a bunch of the "left foot only" shoes and bags. The site has now been completely restored, with new items on display—but if you look carefully, you can still see shards of broken glass inside.
First on the crime scene that day was Sheriff Tom Roberts of Jeff Davis County. The cowboy hat, boots, gun and badge make him the personification of what a Texan sheriff should be and, as such, he has the look of someone who doesn't have much time for an art exhibit in the style of a Prada shoe store.
"I think that most people around here think it's kinda dumb," he chuckles with a nonchalant look back at the installation. "But I don't think that the locals would have attacked it. It's more likely to have been a jealous artist. I joked at the time that the suspect probably only had one leg and that he'd stolen the bags to help him balance. I guess it's kinda weird, but then we have our fair share of strange things around here. For a while we had reports of a chupacabra around these parts. According to the legend, it's a vampire that attacks goats and livestock, and we had a few reports some years back, but we never caught anything." I suspect he thinks it's got something to do with the artists, too.
My question is, what happened to the Prada shoes that weren't stolen? I'm told they are with the site's caretaker, Boyd Elder.
I track him down at his house and find a 63 year old clad head to toe in black clothing with tinted black Persol glasses and long, thinning hair. He looks more like an aging rocker than a contemporary artist and part-time rancher. Although he was born in Valentine, a town only a few miles from Marfa, Boyd has lived in New York, Hawaii and Los Angeles—hanging out with Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson back in the day, and illustrating several Eagles album covers before finding his way back to this part of the world.
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