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Sunday, Nov 22, 2009
Marfa has always entertained great notions. Founded in 1883, it was named by an engineer's wife after a servant in "The Brothers Karamazov." She read the Dostoevski novel while waiting for her husband to finish working on the Southern Pacific railroad. Soon enough, the town grew rich on ranching. In the 1930s and '40s, cattle barons attended elaborate balls and afternoon teas at the Hotel Paisano, an ornate, stuccoed affair that still stands and looks like a bit of Old Seville marooned west of the Pecos.
After World War II, Marfa was in trouble, its robust population having dwindled with the shuttering of its military bases. In 1971, the isolated town was just the place that hard-living Manhattan sculptor Donald Judd was looking for. He wanted a big backyard for his large works and here it was. A fractious and ornery character, Judd cottoned immediately to Marfa's seclusion and affordability. With help from the Dia Foundation, a New York-based cultural organization founded by German art dealer Heiner Friedrich and his wife, Houston oil heiress Philippa de Menil, Judd began acquiring Marfa real estate for his installations. After a falling-out in 1986, the partners reached an out-of-court settlement that created the Chinati Foundation. Judd oversaw the foundation until he died of lymphoma in 1994.
Minimalism wowed the contemporary art scene in the '70s, and because Judd was a giant in the movement, he drew disciples from all over the globe to West Texas. As minimalism increased in popularity, so did Judd's mecca. Many of the pilgrims today evoke religious metaphors for the stark beauty of his work and its setting in wild Texas. A bumper sticker seen around Marfa sports the acronym "WWDJD?" (What Would Donald Judd Do?)
Visit Chinati and you can see why Trento's planned subdivision is as welcome as a belch during a church service. Located in the low-slung barracks and Quonset huts of the former Fort Russell, the foundation and its spare, wind-swept grounds seem more monastery than museum. Buildings on Trento's property, just south of the foundation, would obstruct the sightlines.
Today, articulate docents lead art lovers on a four-hour tour of installations created specifically for the site by world-famous artists such as Claes Oldenburg, Dan Flavin and Ilya Kabakov. The foundation's prized pieces are 100 milled aluminum cubes and giant concrete rectangles made by Judd. These are dusted regularly by the resident interns, usually MFA candidates from Ivy League universities.
Chinati public affairs coordinator Nick Terry credits Chinati with Marfa's renaissance. "Over the past 10 years, the Chinati Foundation has revitalized Marfa, has activated the economy and the town's cultural life through manifold new initiatives," he says. "It has attracted new residents who contribute to the well-being of the region."
The foundation does try to be a good neighbor. In 2000, it lent the city storage space when Marfa was renovating its Victorian-era courthouse. Each year, Chinati waives its $10 entrance fee and invites the townspeople to its grounds to view works such as Tony Feher's piece of basalt atop a plastic Tupperware-like container, 75 of which were given to Chinati donors.
In January this year, according to Jack Strain, who oversees American Plume and Fancy Feather Co., Chinati director Marianne Stockebrand "asked in an offhand manner if we were interested in selling to Chinati because they are very much against development south of their property." Strain named a price, which he won't reveal, but Stockebrand didn't bite. "I never did think they were serious about making an offer that would reflect the value," he says. "He was asking a very high price that we couldn't afford," is all Terry will say.
Following the January meeting, Stockebrand embarked on a campaign to stop American Plume from developing its property. On March 7, she wrote a letter to Marfa's then mayor, Oscar Martinez, and Presidio County Judge Jerry Agan, expressing her concern about American Plume's plans and their impact on Chinati's views. Trento's development "will greatly impact Chinati in its unencumbered vistas of 30 or more miles, its contemplative setting, and its natural wildlife," she charged. To save the views, she raised some very high brows indeed, enlisting blue-chip museum directors and artist Oldenburg in a letter-writing campaign to force Marfa politicians to pluck American Plume's plans before they sprout.
Martinez was unmoved, stating his first concerns were for the year-round residents and their needs. "Perhaps the near future will bring us a pharmacy, a dental clinic, dry cleaning and laundry services," he responded in a letter to Michael Govan, director of the Dia Foundation, which supported Chinati. Judge Agan was also unmoved. "The letter they wrote us said they are all for the little people," he says. "Just not in their backyard."
