MARFA — When the pandemic struck, Marfa art institutions were some of the first to close their doors. While other businesses laid out reopening plans and sought safer ways to operate, Ballroom Marfa, Chinati Foundation and Judd Foundation largely remained closed to visitors. One year in, their leaders talk about why they kept their public operations to a minimum and when they might finally welcome visitors again.
Last spring break, Chinati Foundation was fully booked for the month of March. It’s one of the busiest times of year for the foundation, but when Executive Director Jenny Moore got a call on March 12 from a county health official urging them to close, staff shut down the museum within just four hours.
The shutdown was “a huge loss of income for us,” Moore said, but, “from the very beginning, we understood how significant the situation was and the significant role Chinati could play in supporting the community to take that most serious action.”
Judd Foundation ceased their guided tours and public programs. Ballroom Marfa shut their indoor exhibition space, postponing shows in favor of keeping visitors from traveling to Marfa or congregating at their gallery space.
“While we’ve really appreciated the interest from a traveling public,” Moore said, “We felt it was important for us to stay closed for the community rather than open up for the public.” Though Chinati briefly opened for self-guided outdoor tours, they eventually ended that programming.
In lieu of normal operations, each institution sought new ways to engage the community, support the arts and continue working toward their missions. Judd Foundation partnered with Marfa Steps Up to raise funds that supported local restaurants and frontline workers. They launched online talks and programs that Judd Foundation President Rainer Judd said will continue even beyond the year of being shuttered to the public.
Ballroom Marfa mounted an ambitious exhibition in its outdoor area by utilizing a flag pole to show textile work by a myriad of artists. When lockdown stranded visiting artists Roberto Carlos Lange and Kristi Sword in town, Ballroom commissioned works from the pair and realized that hosting longer-term residencies could become a more integral part of the organization’s mission.
“During the pandemic, we as an institution asked ourselves what can we do at this moment? What do artists need at this moment?” Ballroom Curator Daisy Nam said. Exhibitions and music tours were canceled nationwide, and artists’ teaching jobs withered under the pandemic. “How can we respond to those conditions?”
This week, Ballroom officially launched a new artist residency initiative called Ballroom Sessions—The Farther Place that supports artists and musicians to create new work. “Through the form of in-depth site visits and residencies, research, studio space or production, artists can explore nascent ideas in their practice,” the news release for the program read. The nonprofit arts organization has lent their physical space as an experimental studio workspace for the visiting artists, since visitors aren’t currently making use of it, said Nam.
Chinati pivoted its education program online in a matter of days, continuing to serve area youth with ways to create and engage with art, while also reaching people young and old across the world through their education instagram page. While closed, Chinati has renovated its visitors center, added an ADA-compliant restroom and began restoration work on multiple facilities and works of art.
Last fall, when the pandemic continued to wreak havoc in the United States, the foundation moved its entire Chinati Weekend event online in a matter of six weeks, with 4,500 people attending across the world.
Still, Chinati had to lay off docents and exhibition assistants. They relied on the generosity of donors to keep their foundation healthy. “It’s not been easy for anybody,” Moore said. “I’m very aware there are places in town that really needed to reopen,” Moore said; she doesn’t discredit those tough decisions that helped businesses and individuals find their own way through 2020.
Chinati, Judd and Ballroom have been checking in with each other from month to month, looking at trends in the virus’ spread, vaccination updates and potential holidays that might draw more visitors to the town without a hospital.
“We hope by June we can invite people by appointment,” Nam said about Ballroom, and Judd said the Judd Foundation would remain closed in both Marfa and New York “at least through this spring.”
On the one-year anniversary of Chinati Foundation’s shutdown, the organization sent an email re-affirming their continued closure. This week, Moore said they are taking steps to reopen at limited capacity in May. While she would like Chinati Weekend to be in person in 2021, they are still tracking the trends of the virus to decide when they might safely reopen to the public.
Despite challenges to access testing, Moore placed her hope on the “miracle of the vaccine.” The persistence of Marfa and its institutions “is a testament to the fact that Marfa and Far West Texas is like no other place,” Moore said. “The resilience of the people here astonishes and inspires me in equal measure every day.”