#marfa tx

The epicenter of the art world is in Marfa, Texas? @theartassignment visits this small town where Minimalist artist Donald Judd settled in the 70s, and sowed the seeds for its glorious present, worthy of a pilgrimage.

Donald Judd in Texas I probably wouldn't have noticed this building had it not been for the artist Donald Judd.

In 1973 Donald Judd moved from Spring Street in New York City to Marfa, Texas, a dusty southwestern town of about 5000 people. Here he bought, lived, and worked in ordinary brick and adobe buildings left over from Marfa's military and railroad heyday.

Judd believed that art should not be encrusted with accumulated theory and conventions. It needed scraping away to the essence. The art Judd made was elemental and specific to its place.

He brought the same attitude to the buildings he occupied in Marfa, stripping away the exit signs, lay-in ceilings, and ductwork that encrusted them like a fishing net ensnaring a sea turtle.

As a result, ordinary, neglected buildings became quietly beautiful, like this workshop in Marfa seen at dusk on a winter evening.

Judd returned buildings to their primal state -- a ranch, a bank, an abandoned quartermasters post. The result was often sublime.