Marfa Myths 2016
Marfa, TexasMarfa Myths is a four-day festival of music, cinema, and visual art in the high desert grasslands of Far West Texas. Presented by Ballroom Marfa and Mexican Summer, the festival enters its third year in 2016.
Marfa Myths is a four-day festival of music, cinema, and visual art in the high desert grasslands of Far West Texas. Presented by Ballroom Marfa and Mexican Summer, the festival enters its third year in 2016.
In March of 2016 Ballroom Marfa will open After Effect a group exhibition offering new interpretations of landscape, sublimity, and spirituality. The program will feature Dan Colen; Loie Hollowell; key works by Emil Bisttram, Raymond Jonson, Agnes Pelton, Florence Miller Pierce, and Stuart Walker of the Transcendental Painting Group; an animated film by Oskar Fischinger; and an installation by Arturo Bandini.
As part of Marfa Dialogues/Houston, Lucky Dragons, an experimental music group from Los Angeles, will perform a site-specific work that features a collaboration with Houston-based vocalists, arranged alongside an array of environmental field recordings and live electronics; a composition that lyrically speaks to biodiversity, human ecological impact and climate change as a loss of complexity in a moment of transition.
Ballroom Marfa, FotoFest International and the Public Concern Foundation will bring Marfa Dialogues to Houston in March 2016 as part of the FotoFest 2016 Biennial. Join us for MD/HOU as we consider the scale of climate change from the perspective of artistic practice, public policy, critical theory, and environmental science.
Bitchin Bajas returns to Marfa for an evening of kaleidoscopic psychedelia and collective good vibes in the Ballroom courtyard. Bitchin Bajas is the project of Cooper Crain, Dan Quinlivan and Rob Frye. Using a combination of synthesizers, guitars, flutes and saxophones, the trio conjures an otherworldly sound informed by the hypnotic rhythms of Krautrock, the scintillating guitar work of Robert Fripp, and the longform mysticism of classic New Age cassette tapes.
Lecture Ballroom Marfa hosted a lecture by artist Mary Weatherford, “Agnes Pelton and the American Transcendental” to complement After Effect, an exhibition in Ballroom’s galleries. The lecture took place at the Crowley Theater in Marfa, TX. A painter herself, Weatherford spoke on the work of Agnes Pelton, a member of the historical Transcendental Painting Group […]
DJ Camp is back! As part of Camp Summer Shakeup, Ballroom Marfa presents its popular week-long DJ Camp from June 27 – 30 with instructor DJ Bigface.
This exhibition features newly-commissioned work from artist collective the Institute for New Feeling (IfNf), including the video nominated by Ballroom Marfa for the 2016 season of Artists’ Film International (AFI). he IfNf project will be complemented by two micro-exhibitions hosted by Arturo Bandini in Ballroom’s courtyard. These distinct projects will both respond to the theme of AFI 2016: technology.
In November 2016, Austin-based composer Graham Reynolds returns to Marfa for the final installment of The Marfa Triptych: the chamber opera Pancho Villa From a Safe Distance.
Ballroom Marfa is pleased to announce Grey Goo Gardens, the last of four exhibitions conceived for Arturo Bandini's year-long installation in Ballroom's courtyard.
Poet Eileen Myles joins forces with Ballroom Marfa and Mexican Summer to present Dirty Gay Movie Night at this year's Marfa Myths. This evening’s double-feature includes two hot and heavy classics of *LGBTQ cinema: Bijou (1972) and Community Action Center (2010).
Marfa Myths is an annual music festival and multidisciplinary cultural program founded in 2014 by Brooklyn-based music label Mexican Summer and the nonprofit contemporary arts foundation Ballroom Marfa.
Strange Attractor is an exhibition exploring the uncertainties and poetics of networks, environmental events, technology, and sound. The term “strange attractor” describes the inherent order embedded in chaos, perceivable in harmonious yet unpredictable patterns. This mathematical concept is a useful trope for the elusive order in our lived experience, and the vital pursuit of making meaning from unexpected connections.
Using a unique blend of historical archival footage, interviews and rotoscope animation, Tower reveals the action-packed, untold stories of the witnesses, heroes, and survivors of America’s first mass school shooting, when the worst in one man brought out the best in so many others.
Ballroom has once again joined forces with Summer Shake Up, offered by Marfa ISD in collaboration with other community partner organizations. The summer camp is free with breakfast, lunch, and transportation provided. Students grades five through eight are invited to participate.
Concert Ballroom Marfa hosted Maria Minerva in the courtyard on Thursday, July 6, 2017. Her performance was preceded by a “sunset tent” set by W. Creeves, and the evening featured visual accompaniment by VJ Mellow Arms. Wienertown, the latest contender on the Marfa culinary scene, served hot dogs. This event was free and open to […]
Screening + Q&A Ballroom Marfa presented a screening of Through the Repellent Fence: A Land Art Film, followed by a Q&A with filmmaker Sam Wainwright Douglas, artist Raven Chacon, and producer David Harstein. Through the Repellent Fence: A Land Art Film follows art collective Postcommodity as they strive to construct Repellent Fence, a two-mile long […]
Discussion Ballroom Marfa, in collaboration with the Judd Foundation and Marfa Solar System, hosted Freedom Solar Power for a Marfa Solar Social in the Ballroom courtyard. Members of Sun Power and Freedom Solar spoke on the benefits of renewable energy, regional solar rebates, and solar power technology. Ballroom’s collaboration with Freedom Solar grew out of […]
Ballroom Marfa is pleased to announce Tierra. Sangre. Oro., an exhibition from artist Rafa Esparza. The program will include new installation, performance, and sculptural work from Esparza alongside collaborations and contributions from artists Carmen Argote, Nao Bustamante, Beatriz Cortez, Timo Fahler, Eamon Ore-Giron, and Star Montana.
Concert MEN performed at the opening reception for Tierra. Sangre. Oro. MEN is a Brooklyn-based band and art/performance collective led by Le Tigre’s JD Samson and Michael O’Neill. MEN believe in the radical potential of dance music and its power to demand liberties through invention and play. This was the group’s first performance in several […]