The Chinati Foundation

The Chinati Foundation is a contemporary art museum located in Marfa, Texas, and based upon the ideas of its founder, artist Donald Judd.  We visited here after spending four days at Big Bend National park.  The specific intention of Chinati is to preserve and present to the public permanent large-scale installations by a limited number of artists. The emphasis is on works in which art and the surrounding landscape are inextricably linked.  More on that later. This facility is on 340 acres and was was, for many years, a U.S Army base that was active from 1911 to 1946. At one time it was an artillery unit and this is one of two large buildings where the big guns were stored and maintained.   They have since been rebuilt with new roofs and large glass windows and there is an art installation by Donald Judd inside.

This is a view inside and through the large building in the photo above.  More on the inside later on.

This gives you a sense from this architecture that it was a military facility.

These buildings in a U-shape still look like the barracks they once were.

In some photographs on the Chinati website the ground is covered with beautiful light colored grasses that appear to be about a foot tall.  But now, probably because of drought all you see as far as you look is sand and dirt.

This is an art installation inside one of the old barracks.  Interestingly, there are no windows in the buildings - the wind and the sand blow right through this building.  I was in this building when I heard the wind start to howl, really, and realy strong winds blew right through the building and they were full of sand!  I tucked the camera into my waist and bent over to shield the camera from the blowing dust as best as I could. It was a dust devil!  Within a minute the dust devil had passed on and the winds disappeared.

This is what that barracks building with the art installation inside looks like from the outside.  More tomorrow on the installations in some of the buildings, and outside!