ABOUT
Marfa Myths is an annual music festival and multidisciplinary cultural program founded in 2014 by nonprofit contemporary arts foundation Ballroom Marfa and Brooklyn-based music label Mexican Summer. With Marfa Myths, the two organizations bring together a diversity of emerging and established artists and musicians to work creatively and collaboratively across music, film, and visual arts contexts. The festival is inherently embedded in the landscape of Far West Texas, and engages with Marfa’s cultural history and present-day community.
For more information visit marfamyths.com
Lineup
The extraordinary 2018 lineup features English post-punk band Wire; Brazilian Tropicália legend, Tom Zé; buzzy songstresses, Jessica Pratt; Circuit Des Yeux and The Weather Station; psychedelic pop purveyor Drugdealer, acclaimed outlaw country singer and visual artist Terry Allen; fast folk raconteur Ryley Walker; Detroit dance producer Omar-S; Moroccan trance sextet Innov Gnawa; Austin minimalist ensemble Thor & Friends and NYC’s maximalist Helado Negro Ensemble, pioneering electronic synthesist Suzanne Ciani, serene sound surveyor Laraaji with Arji Oceananda; the site-specific Gravity Hill audio/visual collaboration of Jem Cohen, Guy Picciotto, and company; Amen Dunes, Kelsey Lu, and Equinoxx.
Musicians in Residence
Cate Le Bon and Bradford Cox
Marfa Myths’ annual recording residency lives on with Cate Le Bon and Bradford Cox (Deerhunter, The Atlas Sound) realizing a long correspondence and friendship in a creative, collaborative context. One for the his/herstory books!
Connan and Ade Mockasin
Connan Mockasin brings his pops, Ade Mockasin, along for the ride on the festival express. The father-son duo comprise a secondary recording residency at Marfa Myths 2018, writing, recording, and busking songs from Ade’s teenage years and their collective, present imagination.
Visual Artist in Residence
Jesse Moretti
Jesse Moretti uses illusionistic techniques to play with the space between flatness and dimensionality in her vibrant, geometric abstractions. Large strokes, saturated gradients, and hard edges characterize Moretti’s paintings, prints, and sculptures. She draws on aesthetics associated with op art, graphic design, and digital manipulation tools. According to Moretti, her cast of floating, colliding forms reference “architecture, landscape, design and myth, reimagining them to become something other,” as she has said. “I am interested in how historical references may collapse into the present and create a proposition towards an alternate conception of cultural objects.”
Exhibitions
Hyperobjects
Based on the organizing principles from Dr. Timothy Morton’s 2013 book, Hyperobjects, this collaboration with Ballroom Marfa will use ideas from Morton’s theory to explore the current ecological crisis. Alongside works from various contemporary artists, the project will also include objects from the local environment.
Nance Klehm. Free Exposure (3 Holes, 5 Heaps), Soil Cubby: A Hole for Listening. 2018. Soil and gravel. Courtesy the artist. Photo by Alex Marks.
Imaginary Concerts
The festival hosts Imaginary Concerts, an exhibition and live printing, in honor of the release of Peter Coffin’s new book: Imaginary Concerts: Volume 2, a series of monographs between Coffin and various concert daydreamers. The project was inspired by the iconic posters of LA’s Colby Poster Printing Company, who printed the tricolor gradient posters from 1946 until 2012. A collaboration between Coffin, Anthology Editions and Stumptown Printers, the exhibit will display original prints from Coffin’s Untitled (Designs for Colby Poster Company), 2008.
Peter Coffin, Imaginary Posters exhibition for Marfa Myths 2018. Photo by Alex Marks.
Myths Moments
Acknowledgments
Marfa Myths has been made possible by the generous support of The Brown Foundation, Inc. Houston; The City of Marfa; The Kirkpatrick Family Fund; National Endowment for the Arts; the Texas Commission on the Arts; the Ballroom Marfa Board of Trustees; and Ballroom Marfa members.
In-kind support provided by Big Bend Brewing Company, GEM&BOLT Mezcal, KIND, SAVED Wines, Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea, Stumptown Printers, Tito’s Vodka, and Topo Chico.
Special thanks to our partners The Capri, Crowley Theater, Do Your Thing, El Cosmico, Freda, Hotel Saint George, International Women’s Foundation, Judd Foundation, Lost Horse, Marfa Book Company, Marfa Recording Company, Marfa Studio of Arts, Pure Joy, Thunderbird Hotel, UNITED ARTISTS, Ltd., Visit Marfa, The Well, and Wrong Marfa.
Our media partner is Marfa Public Radio.
Special thanks to Elizabeth Abrahamson; Keith Abrahamsson; API Austin; Lalo Baeza; Vicki Barge; Lori & Tito Beveridge; Daniel & Jessie Browning; Meg Burnie; Joe Cashiola; Ross Cashiola; Lissa Castro; Vicente Celis; Tom Clapp; Cochineal; Rob Crowley; Tim Crowley; Fairfax Dorn & Marc Glimcher; Bailey Elder; David Fenster; Cuca Flores; Mona Garcia; Alex Gates; Richard Griggs; Darby Hillman; Gil Israel; Tim Johnson; Buck Johnston; Flavin Judd; Rainer Judd; Saarin Keck; Vance Knowles; Warren Konigsmark; Katie Kopacz; Matt & Mikelle Kruger; Virginia Lebermann; Jennifer Lees; Susannah Lipsey; Minerva Lopez; Gil Lujan; Alex Marks; Jeff Matheis; Lauren Meader; Jenny Moore; Caitlin Murray; Ann Marie Nafziger; Jake Pepper; Elise Pepple; Pizza Foundation; Jesse Pollock; Emma Rogers; Gory Smelley; Starr Timmons; Nancy Tovar; Cory Van Dyke; John Vogler; Andrea Walsh; Molly Walker; Matt Werth; and Emily Williams. And also to our friends at The Big Bend Sentinel, The Chinati Foundation, Hotel Paisano, Riata Inn, and the Marfa community at large.
