Emily H.
Yelp
I heard a review last night on how aesthetic art is dying, and being replaced by photographic food porn and people's blogging obsessions about food and wine and other things that are consumed. In other words, civilization is getting more hedonistic, or perhaps Warhol did too much when he decided to replace high art with the mundane beauty of everyday life. Anyway, it got my head swimming and so I decided to write about a museum today.
The Chinati Foundation owns museums in the center of Marfa, as well as on the periphery on its multi-acre compound. Donald Judd moved down from New York and purchased a town and a half of land so that he could better display his art in the barren fields and endless skies that make up the west Texas landscape, dotted with javelina, roadrunners, cacti, and bluebonnets.
The buildings housed World War II prisoners of war from Germany, including sleeping quarters for the prisoners, cafeteria, stable, etc. These spaces are filled with 100 Donald Judd boxes, all with slightly different shapes, and large concrete blocks, lava rocks from Iceland, and a replica of a Russian school house. The funny thing about the latter was that there was a bat who had died in the walls. When they called the artist to ask if it should be removed, he said "No, the theme is decay. Please leave it as it is."
Plan to go in the Fall or Spring, as it's more comfortable for an art hike.