Best Overall Day: Marfa

Marfa was absolutely once-in-a-lifetime. The art at the Chinati and Judd Foundations was amazing, but what made our one day in town even more special is that we got to chat with locals and have several pretty pleasing meals (dinner at Maiya's, above). All in all it was a satisfying and unforgettable day.

Scenes from Marfa

The town itself is lovely, with lots of architecture left over from eras past. I kind of felt like we were on an old movie set!

Lunch with the Hipsters @ Food Shark

So who the hell lives in Marfa, you might be wondering? It is 100% unbelievable, but just imagine if someone took a chunk of Williamsburg and dropped it into the middle-of-nowhere, Texas. YES, that is Marfa.

This became obvious during lunch at the Food Shark, which serves gourmet sandwiches and salads out of an airstream in the middle of town. (Btw, "town" means about 20 blocks and a single traffic light -- a single blinking one at that.)

Everyone there was in their 20s/30s, wearing plaid shirts and Wayfarers and talking about things like "yoga tonight," getting service on their iPhones and listening to "Running with Scissors" on tape. Apparently they are all architects/artists/art history graduates. And they do things like run the galleries/work at the restaurants/build solar-powered communes in the middle of the prairie.

HELLO hipsters!!

Judd's Interior & Furniture Design

I think it's pretty interesting that Judd made quite a few furniture pieces in his time, and was as rigorous in designing them as he was in making his art.

Nevertheless, he considered design an entirely separate thing from art. Someone once suggested that one of his steel boxes would make a great coffee table; he considered it and then decided it would be blasphemous to make a work of art serve a practical purpose. Design, on the other hand, was purely practical for him.

These days, in our age of "design as art," his furniture sure looks as beautiful and "artful" as his art.


Here is a peek inside a window at some of his chairs. Very boxy, just like his, er, boxes, no?


More chairs... I like how when all of them are pushed in, they look like the legs of the table.


These are what are known as "Judd doors." They hinge from the middle and can only be opened to a 45-degree angle, per his meticulous specifications. At least that's the story the Chinati has. When we went on a tour of Judd's old house in the neighborhood later on in the afternoon, the Judd Foundation pooh-poohed that and said there was no need to be so strict: "Oh, we're not going to yell at you if it's not at that exact angle." Hmm, wonder why there's the disagreement?

Highlights from Marfa: Dan Flavin

Hey look, it's Dan Flavin again! Unlike with Chamberlain, my appreciation of this guy goes up every time I see him. And his stuff really shines when it's site-specific; one small piece on a gallery wall does not begin to give you a sense of how cerebral he was in his experiments with light and color.

Here, Judd gave him free rein over six separate U-shaped barracks. Flavin created two long corridors at the bottom of each "U," filling them with parallelograms of light that were one color on one side, and the complementary color on the other (pink/green and blue/yellow). The funny -- and amazing -- thing is that, in each case, it's not obvious how the colors will affect each other, even though you think it'll be.

Highlights from Marfa: John Chamberlain

John Chamberlain is that dude who makes gigantic sculptures made out of compacted car parts. I gotta say, while going to see Judd and Flavin, et al, in a place like this (or Dia: Beacon in New York) gives you a whole new perspective on their work, it didn't really increase my appreciation of Chamberlain. It was just -- eh. The space is spectacular though, right?

One fun thing is that we got to jump up and down on a foam and canvas "sculpture" of his!

Highlights from Marfa: Judd in the Prairie

Judd did a total of 100 milled aluminum boxes here in Marfa, each one unique, and installed them in two artillery sheds. He also did a spectacular series of concrete boxes right outside on the prairie -- the whole thing stretches for about a half mile or so:

Day 11: Marfa

Marfa is a place that has to be seen to be believed. The artist Donald Judd bought a bunch of land here in 1979 after falling in love with it, and it's not hard to see why -- the pure light and wide open spaces are an artist's dream come true.

Judd repurposed the abandoned military barracks and artillery sheds he found to house his work, and invited his friends -- most notably, Dan Flavin and John Chamberlain -- to join him. The land is now owned by the Chinati Foundation, which took over from the Dia. You can view a select part of the collection by tour only.

Being here, I can't imagine seeing Judd again in a gallery or museum -- these fields of golden straw are where his works belong, and in the meeting of nature and Judd's rigorous minimalism, we come close to the sublime.