Donald Judd, the Project at Marfa
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Cite Spring-Summer 1988 9 r / / / # Artillery Shed, Chinati Foundation, Maria, Texas You can almost get to Marfa by train, Across the street from the feed mill is the joined three brick-and-concrete taking the Houston to Alpine leg of The Texas home of artist Donald Judd. In warehouses to form an immense walled- Sunset Limited which leaves Houston 1971. Judd came to Marfa to make a in gravel court that looks like a Mayan around midnight and arrives in Alpine summer home. At the time he was living ball court, The warehouses are Donald the next morning. Alpine is 20 miles east in New York City, in a seven-story Soho segmented along their length into a series of Marfa. By car the 200-mile trip from loft building where he also made and kept of rooms which function as separate El Paso takes about three hours, traveling his work. He still spends time there. Judd entities: living quarters, studio spaces - south along the Rio Grande, then east came to Marfa looking for a place to with Judd's sculptures - and a library. through the region known as the Trans raise his son and daughter, away from the Judd made much of the furniture for the Pecos and south again through the Davis crowded world of New York. He liked Compound. A cluster of trees and a vine- Judd, Mountains. Either by train or car the Maria's relative emptiness, its covered pergola reside in one corner of journey to Marfa is full of the detachment. Also, land and property the courtyard, the garden of the unexpected. were cheap. Compound. Near the garden an open hearth stands as a symbol of the welcome The land in this part of Texas is sparsely Two years later, he bought a block of and plenty provided to family and guests. The settled: Spanish colonials called it abandoned warehouses. He enclosed the Judd likes the company of people: his desplobado, the unpopulated place. The warehouse block, making a compound generosity is apparent. The Compound is population density. 55.000 people in an for himself, his family, and his art. He a prelude to the work nearby. area the size of South Carolina, is among the lowest in the United States. The land in the Trans Pecos is surprisingly green, Project not nearly so arid or wasted as the land of the Texas oil fields to the north. Limestone mountains poke out along the horizon plane of the spare landscape. The sky is perfectly clear, and in the dry air At objects in the distance appear closer than they really are. An intense sunlight sharpens the focus so that every bush, rock, and flower stands out against the sky and earth, catching the luminous Marfa light and casting distinct deep shadows. Marfa is the seat of Presidio County. Like its courthouse, the town seems William F. Stern bigger than its population of 2,500. It also seems suspended in another time - Highland Avenue, Marfa, Texas America before the era of instant culture and fast food. Its main street. Highland Avenue, is very wide with two-story commercial buildings from the '20s and M '30s along sidewalks protected by - At J projecting flat awnings. The Paisano hotel, built in the '20s Mediterranean rival style, was where the cast and crew from the movie Giant stayed during the filming outside Marfa. The 1886 JK fj0 ^^n^^^^ iv\* courthouse with its slender tower and *"• T f • ' [rijl^^HJ dome dominates the center of town. 1/1 I. Marfa is an agricultural town, and there 111' ifl 1 UUB ' J H 1 ^ ! c™ are a lot of warehouses. The Southern _ l Pacific Railroad runs through town with a side rail to the Godbold Feed Mill grain elevator, the tall structure first seen when approaching the town. Photography by Paul Hester Garden, the Compound, Marfa, Texas Interior of Artillery Shed with mill aluminum pieces, Donald Judd T^mnm^ The Compound, Marfa, Texas, home of Donald Judd and his family Mill aluminum piece, the Artillery Shed 0-K. 0 * T i t i-Ut i u t - */ IKirtTlt* t_ "PlfcttJ H ^ C O I Z J M T ^ t. T'lECliS Tlw enterprise in Marfa was meant to be illuminate the sculpture pieces within. T ts»t6.-4T'S4iJ>iwO- > ' « ' constructive. Tile art was meant to be. The brick end walls with their smaller 5a=a^- and now will be, permanently installed windows have been left as Judd found and maintained in a space suitable to it. them. ^ v Most of the an was made for the existing ^licH. f Our ftt 1» buildings, which were dilapidated. Tlie For Judd. the architecture is never 1:3:3 buildings were adjusted to the art as separate from the sculpture and the much as possible. New ones would have practical soon yields to the poetic. The I? ^ been better. Nevertheless, in reworking two sheds relate to one another as two tf-L. W V the old buildings. I've turned them into powerful bodies on a flat plain in a architecture.' striking formal arrangement. This same abstract relationship of identical units Judd removed the wood floor of the occurs between the six U-shaped concrete Arena building, filling the space barracks buildings nearby, making a between the concrete floor beams with grouping that modulates the scale of the gravel. The space inside the Arena is larger sheds. Just below the Artillery huge, formed by bare whitewashed Sheds and Barracks. Judd installed 15 of I'. I . I \z: 2. concrete walls and a gently pitched truss his large geometric concrete pieces I2.X 12. roof. In this giant empty room, Judd stretching a half mile across a field. 3 <-. 12- n gathers his guests for feasts and Viewed from different vantage points, the CJWSCTE tjiu-biftic^ C H I M A T I '^ouw-Sa-T'ckJ C.-fi/ti^A^ntJ celebrations. Attached to one end of the arrangement of these clearly formed Arena, a labyrinth of thick concrete walls elements continually rccompose forms a series of courtyard-like themselves into infinite combinations. It Elevation drawings for the Concrete Buildings, Donald Judd enclosures connected by brick and gravel is a composition that includes buildings Just outside of town is Fort D.A. Russell, commissioned by Dia. two of which have paths. Views from the courtyard are that have not been altered, buildings that a deserted army base, which served as a been fully realized: 100 pieces made framed by slits where the concrete walls have been changed for new uses, and the chemical warfare center and prisoner of from mill aluminum, installed in the come together, ordering the way we see sculpture pieces specifically and war camp during World War II. Between Artillery Sheds and 15 concrete works the landscape beyond, as though through permanently installed. There is a surreal 1979 and 1981 the Dia Foundation installed on a half-mile stretch of prairie the viewfindcr of a camera. Nearby, wild tension between the land, the buildings, purchased 340 acres of the site, which nearby. A sizable group of Chamberlain antelope graze silently. and what the land and buildings contain. included six barracks buildings, two pieces have been purchased and installed artillery warehouses, and a gymnastic in the Wool and Mohair Building. The The Artillery Sheds. World War II Whether he is making sculpture or arena. Dia is a charitable foundation Dan Flavin fluorescent light sculptures armament warehouses, were substantially building, Judd applies the same process. established in 1974 by Heiner Friedrich have been designed and will be installed altered to accommodate the 100 mill This is clearly revealed in his drawings and his wife. Philippa dc Menil in the six barracks buildings of the fort. aluminum pieces. The two long buildings for the proposed Concrete Buildings to be Friedrich, the daughter of Dominique Three additional groups of Judd's works are set end to end, one slightly skewed built to the west of the Barracks to house and John de Menil. The Dia Foundation are in storage awaiting construction often off axis to the other. They were the remainder of his work. They are was founded in part to support the Concrete Buildings, which Judd has constructed of reinforced concrete frames simple drawings which could just as creation of large-scale art works. The designed. The foundation owns the with red brick infill walls and a flat easily be drawings for sculpture. They buildings and land around Fort D.A. complete prints of Barnett Newman, a concrete roof. There were practical communicate the essence of the idea and Russell were purchased by Dia as the site gift from Newman's widow, Annalee, considerations in planning the conversion serve as specification to the fabricator. for a sculpture and architecture project which will be installed in the future of these buildings from military The drawings are two dimensional, a by Donald Judd. Dia also purchased the together with Judd's collection of works warehouses to an architecture for reduced version of the architect's working Wool and Mohair Building near the by Carl Andre, David Rabi now itch, sheltering the works of art. The old roof drawings - drawings with measurements Compound lo be renovated as an Larry Bell, Richard Serra, Robert Irwin, was not sufficiently watertight, so Judd and notations. The measurements are exhibition space. In 1986, the Chinati Yayoi Kusama, Roy Lichtenstein. John added a prominently vaulted galvanized metric with a mathematical exactness and Foundation succeeded Dia as the owner Chamberlain, Richard Long, Dan Flavin, metal roof, not unlike the indigenous logic essential to the idea.