MARFA: Art in the Desert

Two Days in Marfa, Texas

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It requires a long and dusty trek across the desert to reach Marfa, Texas. Situated 200 miles from El Paso, Marfa is a little burg in west Texas with a population of 2,200 and a thriving community culture steeped in modern art and architecture. I traveled there to meet with the inimitable designer Barbara Hill, whose Marfa residence, a renovated turn-of-the-century dance hall, will be featured in an upcoming issue of Dwell. She squired me around, showed me the sights and introduced me to this unique and vibrant arts community. While I only had two days, admittedly not nearly enough time, I captured a few shots of a most unusual place.

Barbara and I kicked off our Marfa tour over “margarita martinis” and good old Texas steak at Maiya’s Restaurant, owned and operated by East coast expat Maiya Keck.

While Marfa has a long military history and has served as a popular destination for movie crews, it was artist Donald Judd that put Marfa on the map. He began buying buildings here in the 1970s, working with New York’s DIA Foundation to find a permanent home for his large-scale pieces. He purchased 340 acres that once belonged to the military—in fact German POW’s were housed here after World War II—and used existing artillery sheds and barracks to house his installations. Here we see his fifteen untitled works in concrete, which he placed from 1980-86. Each structure was poured on-site, and though I wanted to get closer, I was warned that it was rattlesnake season. No thanks.

In 1986 Judd parted ways with DIA and the Chinati Foundation was born. Here we see one of two artillery sheds that Judd rehabbed with a new Quonset-style roof and new quartered windows—additions that doubled the proportions of both structures and provided a light-filled space for his 100 milled-aluminum works.

— Amanda Dameron