As the art world descends upon Marfa this week, there’s lots of buzz about all the upcoming activities and attractions: the special exhibitions and gallery openings, artist talks and studio visits, the live music performances and, of course, the open viewing of the Chinati Foundation’s collections.
It’s still the only time out of the year visitors can see the entire collection without having to book a guided tour. To help one navigate through this sudden flurry of offerings and options, here’s a breakdown of some of the Chinati Foundation main events and exhibitions taking place over the weekend.
Opening night attractions
As festivities kick off Friday in downtown Marfa, Chinati Foundation Artist In Residence Klara Lidén will present new work inside the Locker Plant at 130 East Oak St. from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. A Swedish artist currently based in Berlin, Lidén’s multidisciplinary practice encompasses video, sculpture, performance, installation and architectural intervention (she actually started out studying architecture in Stockholm). She’s perhaps best known for her installations and video performances that respond to specific urban environments and public spaces.
The live music—a constant fixture of Chinati Weekend ever since Judd brought in bagpipers for the inaugural ceremony—also takes place Friday night. This year’s act, the world-renowned jazz composer and multi-instrumentalist Roscoe Mitchell, will perform with two of his longtime collaborators inside the Capri building at 8 p.m.
Exhibition openings and talks
Returning visitors are quite keen to see the two special exhibitions opening over Chinati Weekend. Fred Sandback: Sculpture is a remounting of an installation the artist initially created for the museum’s U-shaped special exhibition gallery back in 2001, comprising six of his structural yarn sculptures as well as three painted wood reliefs. (Though the new installation follows the original in every aspect, Sandback considered such remakings to be completely new works.)
Oscar Hagerman: Sillas de Mexico presents a selection of chair designs by Oscar Hagerman, a Spanish-born architect and designer (with Swedish father), inside Chinati’s smaller exhibition space. Though not widely known in the U.S., Hagerman’s socially-conscious approach to design—he works extensively with Indigenous rural communities establishing industrial design schools and cooperatives—has made him one of the most celebrated and influential designer-architects within Mexico.
Both exhibitions officially open at 10 a.m. Saturday and are part of the weekend’s open viewing lineup. Special presentations and talks will be held on both Sandback and Hagerman at the Crowley Theater Saturday afternoon starting at 2 p.m. at 98 S. Austin Street. An additional film screening of the Hagerman documentary, El Patio de mi Casa, takes place Sunday morning at 10 a.m. at the Crowley.
Open viewing options
As always, the museum offers open viewing of its permanent collection on Saturday and Sunday—the only time of the year visitors can roam the grounds and buildings outside the docent-led tours. Most installations are situated on the museum’s 340-acre campus (a former military base) including Donald Judd’s 100 boxes in aluminum, the centerpiece of the collection. At Chinati, Judd aimed to integrate art harmoniously into the surrounding architecture and natural landscape. (“Art-in-context” is a phrase favored by docents.) This installation—along with Judd’s outdoor concrete works—is an embodiment of that vision, a union of art, architecture and land, and it’s the essential experience for first-time visitors.
2025 marks the 25th anniversary of Dan’s Flavin’s fluorescent light work, the other major cornerstone installation on the main campus. Considered one work of art spread out over six consecutive buildings (six former U-shaped barracks on the property’s southern end), it’s a series or progression of buildings that unfolds as the viewer moves through them.
Most other installations are housed in the barracks building and smaller mess halls distributed throughout the property, and it’s primarily a one artist/one building model. (Judd was into large-format work, not art-historical exhibits or anthology shows.) Usually these works are only accessible on the Full Collection Tour (whose five-hour length can intimidate casual museum goers).
A standout installation among these and highlight for many visitors is Ilya Kabakov’s abandoned Russian schoolhouse, an installation of an (imaginary) abruptly-abandoned Soviet schoolhouse within an abandoned Army barracks building. (Kind of an installation of a ruin within a ruin.) Considering most people associate Judd with “minimalism” (a term he always rejected), the Kabakov always surprises newcomers as does the John Wesley Gallery, set on the property’s southeast side. When attempting to describe Wesley’s graphic, stylized paintings, critics use terms like “pop-surrealist” or “eccentric-minimalist,” but he eludes straightforward categorization, and his inclusion in the collection is a testament to the variety of styles Judd embraced.
Three of the mess halls lining the sequence of Flavin buildings contain installations, and visitors can view them in tandem with Flavin’s work or circle back on the return. Here, you’ll find Carl Andre’s installation of concrete poetry; one of Roni Horn’s paired objects, and an installation of barely-there graphite drawings (plus two paintings) by the relatively unknown Icelandic artist Ingolfur Arnarsson. (He was an artist-in-residence in 1992, and Judd was so impressed with his work he decided to incorporate it into the permanent collection.)
It’s worth mentioning Andre’s concrete poetry is unexpectedly diverse and offers a more literary or narrative approach to the genre (he incorporates classical poetic forms and creates hypnotic renditions of historic events—often by isolating and collaging together different eyewitness accounts). Definitely worth checking out if you have any preconceived notions about concrete poetry.
Chinati also has two off-site locations. Situated on the former Army hospital building site (just a few blocks from the main campus), the Robert Irwin building is often introduced as an artwork in the form of a building. It combines art, architecture, landscape architecture and, for many visitors, is one of Chinati’s main events.
Last but not least, the Chamberlain Building in central downtown Marfa marks the beginning of the foundation—it was the first to open to the public in 1983—and houses the world’s largest and most spacious installation of Chamberlain’s work. (The generous spacing between works is key; many have come to better appreciate Chamberlain’s work after seeing it spaced out like this.)
Note: The Judd Foundation will offer limited open viewing inside the recently-opened Architecture Office on Saturday from 10 a.m. to noon; regular guided tours, though, go out throughout the weekend.