Marfa
When artist Donald Judd purchased a former grocery on Highland Avenue in downtown Marfa in 1991, it was one of the last buildings he acquired in town for his work spanning art, architecture, and furniture design. He renovated the ground floor of the turn-of-the-century building to manage activities associated with his 33,000-acre ranch, Ayala de Chinati, in the nearby Chinati Mountains. On the façade, he added the brand for his ranch and the number 76, a reference to 1976, the year he purchased the first six sections of Ayala de Chinati.
Now the public will have the opportunity to add the Ranch Office to its list of tours exploring the life of the late artist who put Marfa on the map for the international art world. The Judd Foundation will hold open tours and celebrations of the office on Saturday, April 25, after work was completed to restore and stabilize the historic building. Free programs, including open hours and a talk centered on the archaeological sites and ancient inhabitants of the region are scheduled.
The Ranch Office will now be one of eight buildings open as part of the Judd Foundation guided visit program in Marfa. Following the integration of art and architecture in his living and working spaces throughout Marfa, Judd installed 10 works of art—eight reliefs and two floor works—in the Ranch Office, alongside maps and ranching equipment. The space will provide direct experience with Judd’s interest in the land as it relates to his art and architecture: “My work,” Judd wrote in 1983, “has the appearance it has, wrongly called ‘objective’ and ‘impersonal,’ because my first and largest interest is in my relation to the natural world, all of it, all the way out.”
Judd installed the Ranch Office with two types of works: wall reliefs and floor boxes. All of the works are made in common Douglas fir plywood, both painted and unpainted, and illustrate his concern with enclosed space through proportionally determined voids or embedded found objects that emphasize three-dimensionality. They reference works made early in Judd’s practice: the floor boxes of this type were first made in 1963 and 1964; and the first wall relief with a centrally placed embedded object was made in 1961, followed by a square relief with embedded object in 1962.
The land comprising Ayala de Chinati is protected through a conservation easement established by Judd Foundation in 2000. The primary purpose of the easement is to safeguard the land from being subdivided and to ensure the land retains its ecological and scenic condition in perpetuity. The easement upholds Judd’s intended purpose that the land be conserved in its entirety for the benefit of the scientific community and the general public.
The restoration of the Ranch Office addressed the historic interiors within the ground and basement levels of the two-story building, including upgrades to the building envelope. The work primarily focused on the implementation of climate-control upgrades to improve environmental conditions for the installed collection of art and objects. The Ranch Office is the latest project completed by Judd Foundation in the long-term plan for restoration of its Marfa buildings.
The Ranch Office is one of 26 buildings associated with Judd in Marfa recognized on the National Register of Historic Places. The recognition acknowledges Judd’s efforts in preservation and adaptive reuse of historic buildings used for the permanent installation of his art and that of other artists. Saturday’s schedule includes:
1 – 2:30 p.m.: Ranch Office & Pinto Canyon history and public talks, 218 North Highland Avenue; Koyana Flotte, University of Texas at El Paso; Tim Gibbs, Big Bend Ranch State Park; Erin Schneider, Judd Foundation
3 – 5 p.m.: Ranch Office open hours, 112 North Highland Avenue
5 – 7 p.m.: Opening tailgate celebration, 108 North Highland Avenue (drinks and food are first come, first served)
This program has been made possible through the support of Eugene Binder Gallery, Cactus Liquors and Lone Star, and a grant from the Texas Commission on the Arts. Printed materials for the Ranch Office have been funded by the National Trust Preservation Fund of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.