Issue link: http://papercitymagazine.uberflip.com/i/1501754
THE SUMMER ART PILGRIMAGE If wanderlust has struck, might we suggest one of the most American of adventures: a summer road trip. We've mapped out five must-see art destinations, cities, or hamlets within a day's drive of Houston. So, gas up, enlist a friend or two, and hit your ignition button. We suggest you do as Frost did and take the one less traveled. MARFA — 8 hours, 30 minutes Chinati Foundation, Judd Foundation, Ballroom Marfa Donald Judd (1928 – 1994) remains one of the most significant artists of the 20th century. The remote Trans-Pecos outpost of Marfa sprawls across a decommissioned 1919-1920 army base, which Judd transformed into the world's most improbable, yet ultimate art town. As such, Marfa and its two Judd-focused foundations continue to lure collectors, curators, writers, and cultural cognoscenti. At The Chinati Foundation, founded 1987, Judd's own rigorous works join commissions by other artists dedicated to mirroring his staunch minimalist aesthetic, with installations by Carl Andre, Dan Flavin, Roni Horn, Ilya Kabakov, Richard Long, Robert Irwin, and Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen deployed in buildings and grounds of the former Fort D.A. Russell. The Judd Foundation, Marfa locale founded 1994, preserves his former architecture and art studios, which occupy downtown buildings, a princely surfeit of space in an exquisitely beautiful and isolated pilgrimage site. Judd's residence, La Mansana de Chinati/The Block, is an adobe wall-enclosed city block consisting of living space, a quartermaster's o f f i c e , h a n g a r s displaying work, his 13,000-volume library, and an expansive courtyard. chinati.org, juddfoundation.org. Another reason to voyage to West Texas is Ballroom Marfa, the nonprofit that commissioned Elmgreen + Dragset's 2005 Prada Marfa. Visit (continued) By Catherine D. Anspon, Billy Fong, and Alison Medley ROAD TRIPPING: Ballroom Marfa's mystical installment of a more recent public art piece, 2018's stone circle by Haroon Mirza. The art space's latest exhibits include Houston creative Li(sa E.) Harris' trance-like "unlit: sof landin" incorporating Afro-diasporic ceremonial histories, paired with a group show "Tongues of Fire," with its activist bent (both exhibitions, through September 16). ballroommarfa.org. Retail therapy and gallery going. Our top two spots in Marfa and environs for acquisitions and discoveries are Garza Marfa and the recently inaugurated Webb's Fair & Square (worth the 21-mile drive to Fort Davis). Garza Marfa husband-and-wife design team Jamey Garza and Constance Holt-Garza relocated to Marfa from the California coast, crossbreeding the effortlessness of the West Coast with the materials and simplicity of the Trans-Pecos desert. They offer fresh takes on Bauhaus furnishings, carefully sourced textiles and ceramics, and Khadi desert blankets hand-dyed and woven to Garza Marfa designs. Webb's Fair & Square reflects the outsider-art and enchantingly odd vision of Julie and Bruce Lee Webb of Webb Gallery of Waxahachie renown. The Webbs' latest endeavor adds a Fort Davis storefront housed in a 1906 Masonic lodge with a trove of the couple's collection of Masonic artifacts. garzamarfa.com, webbartgallery.com. BARTLESVILLE, OKLAHOMA — 8 hours Price Tower An hour north of Tulsa and looming tall in the middle of an Oklahoma prairie sits the 221- foot Price Tower, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1956. Wright nicknamed the building "The Tree that Escaped the Crowded Forest" since it was not built in Manhattan as originally planned but instead in Bartlesville, Oklahoma's first oil boomtown. Price Tower is the architectural visionary's only fully realized skyscraper with interiors he designed, including furniture, fabrics, fixtures, and murals. Go for the architectural masterpiece but don't miss the art gallery and inn (the restaurant is temporarily closed for remodeling), Donald Judd's 15 untitled works in concrete, 1980-1984, at The Chinati Foundation, Marfa Dan Flavin's Untitled (Marfa project), 1996, at The Chinati Foundation, Marfa, Texas John Chamberlain's 22 variously titled works in painted and chromium-plated steel, 1972-1982, at The Chinati Foundation PHOTO BY DOUGLAS TUCK. COURTESY THE CHINATI FOUNDATION PHOTO BY FLORIAN HOLZHERR COURTESY THE CHINATI FOUNDATION Haroon Mirza's stone circle, 2018, at Ballroom Marfa ROWDY LEE DUGAN PHOTO BY FLORIAN HOLZHERR COURTESY THE CHINATI FOUNDATION 24