BALLROOM MARFA

The story of the first 20 years of an innovative arts center in West Texas.

In 2002, eager to leave New York City and find “a place with that elusive composition of elements that would finally set my painting free,” co-founder Fairfax Dorn set out for her home state of Texas. After she and Lebermann attended a reading in Marfa, they decided to turn that sleepy town into “a locus of possibilities, a place to manifest what anywhere else might be impossibilities.” They found a “tumbledown onetime bus stop, car repair shop, grocery store, gallery, and (most importantly) dance hall” and, with the help of Vance Knowles, a curator they brought on board “to bring in people not accustomed to the higher arts or art on walls: Punks. Ranchers. Cowboys. Queers. Escapees. Local legends. City. Town. Country,” they opened Ballroom Marfa, dedicated to “unmitigated youthful savagery—pour all the ingredients in a pot and whistle while you wait—in avoidance of anything resembling the obvious.” This coffee-table book highlights the artists, concerts, film series, youth programs, and more that have appeared there, from Prada Marfa, a life-size store model on “a barren stretch of highway” that housed “luxury goods from the famed fashion brand’s fall 2005 collection of bags and shoes, but thwarts commerce, as access is impossible; the door is always locked,” to Irrigación, a video work by Teresa Margolles that “exposes the ongoing violence in Mexico, specifically along its northern border, through penetrating visual metaphor.” The many reminiscences and multidisciplinary projects described here blend together after a while, but the book is a handsome tribute and contains numerous entertaining anecdotes, as when one artist says a rancher told him he had no issue with him being Jewish and “homosexual,” but, “My one thing I do take issue with is you being a vegetarian.”

A lively compendium of reminiscences about a unique arts venue.