Upon my recent visit to Marfa I visited what the small town is known most for – the CHINATI foundation. Fort D.A Russell was once home to a old military base in 1911 and has since been converted into a contemporary art museum. The CHINATI is dedicated to preserving and showing very large-scale installations. When it initially opened to the public in 1986 it was to exhibit the work of Donald Judd, John Chamberlain and Dan Flavin. The collection has now expanded and includes 15 outdoor concrete works by Donald Judd, 100 aluminum works by Judd housed in two converted artillery sheds, 25 sculptures by John Chamberlain, an installation by Dan occupying six former army barracks, and works by Carl Andre. The Chinati also includes Ingólfur Arnarsson, Roni Horn, Ilya Kabakov, Richard Long, Claes Oldenburg,Coosje van Bruggen, David Rabinowitch, and John Wesley. Each artist’s work is installed in a separate building on the museum’s grounds. Temporary exhibitions feature modern and contemporary art of diverse media.
One of the most impressive installations was the neon light by Dan Flavin. These large-scale, colored fluorescent light installations are located in six buildings which used to serve as old army barracks as mentioned before. Two parallel tilted corridors are constructed at the connecting arms of each U-shaped building. These corridors contain light barriers that are placed either in the center or at the end of each corridor. They consist of eight foot-long fluorescent light fixtures occupying the entire height and width of each corridor. The tubes are installed with space in between them, allowing one to view through the barriers. Each fixture holds two differently colored bulbs shining in opposite direction. The barriers in the six building utilize four colors: pink, green, yellow and blue. The first two buildings use pink and green, the next two yellow and blue, and the last two bring all four colors together.
As its founder Donald Judd wrote:
It takes a great deal of time and thought to install work carefully. This should not always be thrown away. Most art is fragile and some should be placed and never moved again. Somewhere a portion of contemporary art has to exist as an example of what the art and its context were meant to be. Somewhere, just as the platinum iridium meter guarantees the tape measure, a strict measure must exist for the art of this time and place.
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