Images of Autre Ne Veut and opener LRN GRN from their intimate performance at the Highland Annex here in Marfa on 9 October 2013. Above photo of Autre Ne Veut under the shade structure by Alex Marks. All other photos by Lesley Brown.

Yingfan is a current member of the Secretary General’s MDG Advocacy Group, a group of eminent personalities who have shown outstanding leadership in promoting the implementation of the MDGs

Now Bubba gets to slip that jacket on Spieth’s shoulders.

At the final round qualifier inside a cacaphonic King Abdullah International Stadium, Ahmad Ibrahim flashed an early warning when he rounded Atsuto Uchida and stung Japan ‘keeper Eiji Kawashima’s hands at his near post on the quarter hour.

How many cornerbacks have the Dolphins gone through Cortland Finnegan, Dimitri Patterson, Vontae Davis, Sean Smith, Richard Marshall, Jason Allen, Will Allen without finding a pair they could stick with for a long time.
Rutgers football, Big Ten bowl projections

“They were tougher,” Mack said.

But La Celeste beat Venezuela, won in Peru and stood strong when it really mattered.

Arturo Herrerra
88 DIA, 1998
41′ 7″ x 24′ 7″
Solvent print on UltraFlexx Ultramesh
Photo by Lesley Brown

Chinati Weekend at Ballroom Marfa
Friday, October 11, 6-8pm
Cocktail reception

In celebration of Chinati Weekend, Ballroom Marfa invites everyone to join us for cocktails and view our fall visual arts exhibition, Comic Future, on Friday, October 11, from 6 to 8pm.

Ballroom Marfa is located at 108 E. San Antonio St., and open Wednesday through Saturday, 10am-6pm and Sunday, 10am-3pm.

Click here for more information about Comic Future

Prada Marfa installation, 2005

Our friends at Texas Mountain Trail reminisce over their first encounter with Prada Marfa, back in 2005:

“By late summer, I started to recognize the landmarks, and I noticed a curious structure being built on the side of the road. Odd. Too small for a house or store. Too large for a bus shelter, and too far from anything to house kids waiting for the school bus. Yet, there it was, being patiently built by a small crew of men, just a few miles north of Valentine, population 247. A boxy-looking thing, way out in the middle of the desert nowhere.

In early October, I took that road home to Van Horn. The first clue was the portable lighted sign by the only gas station in Valentine. “Welcome Prada Marfa,” it said. Huh.

Then I sped by, way too fast to get anything but a hint of what it was. Stop the car, back up. What?!? A Prada store?

There, perfectly and beautifully positioned in the desert, is a sealed time capsule, a non-functional full-sized reproduction of an urban boutique Prada store stocked with the fall 2005 line of shoes and purses. It makes me happy just to look at it. It will decay in time, and the ruin will become part of the landscape.”

Keep reading at Texas Mountain Trail. (via @trailgirl)

More scenes from the Comic Future installation.

Arturo Herrera
88 DIA, 1998
Solvent print on UltraFlexx Ultramesh 41’ 7” x 25’ 7”
Commissioned by Ballroom Marfa

New York’s Devin Gary & Ross, the visually inclined trio of cartoon animator Devin Flynn, photographer and sign painter Ross Goldstein, and illustrator, designer, and all-around Renaissance weirdo Gary Panter, will perform at the opening of Comic Future, September 27, 2013, at Ballroom Marfa. They will be joined by special guest Kramer, musician, composer, record producer and founder of the New York City record label Shimmy-Disc.

As part of their visit to Far West Texas, both Devin and Gary are stopping by Marfa ISD this Friday to talk about their artistic practices. If you aren’t lucky enough to be in the classroom, we’d like to point you to “Gary Panter’s Drawing Tips” from Unbored. Our favorite …

4. Most people (even your favorite artists) don’t like their drawings as much as they want to. Why? Because it is easy to imagine something better. This is only ambition, which is not a bad thing — but if you can accept what you are doing, of course you will progress quicker to a more satisfying level and also accidentally make perfectly charming drawings even if they embarrass you.

Keep reading … [via Arthur Magazine]

The official publication of the Texas Society of Architects weighs in on the Ballroom Marfa Drive-In:

“We hadn’t experienced weather as an object until we lived in Marfa,” said Michael Meredith, AIA, and Hilary Sample, AIA, founders of MOS. “The West Texas landscape naturally recedes into an infinite and scaleless distance, resisting a static sense of location or enclosure.” The design team thus sought a solution that would at once flow into the endless horizon and interrupt it.

Keep reading …

Isa Genzken, “Untitled,” 2004. Adhesive, tape, and prints on aluminum. Courtesy of the Linda Pace Foundation.

If you’re in San Antonio (or feel like making a pilgrimage) be sure to stop by Artpace San Antonio where Ballroom Executive Director Fairfax Dorn recently organized Localized Histories, an exhibition composed of various works from the Linda Pace Foundation, which are all either created using found objects or use the technique of assemblage.

The exhibition includes work by artists Leonardo Drew, Tony Feher, Isa Genzken, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Thomas Hirschhorn, Christian Marclay, and Linda Pace.

From Artpace:

Localized Histories addresses the various formal and conceptual issues of space, time, process, and material. The exhibition explores the relationships between the static, found objects and their temporal nature to create something which extends beyond painting and sculpture.

Localized Histories will be on view from September 12 to December 29 in the Hudson (Show)Room at Artpace.

My research and composition center in Marfa.

The Marfa Triptych is three portraits of West Texas as envisioned by Austin-based composer Graham Reynolds. The first installment, The Country and Western Big Band Suite, is set to premiere at the Crowley Theater in Marfa, Texas on November 16 at 8pm. Tickets are available online in the Ballroom Marfa store.

Half-price tickets are available in the gallery and at the door for all residents of Brewster, Jeff Davis and Presidio counties.

The multimedia, genre-hopping trilogy of performances is inspired by Reynolds’ interest in the intermingled populations of the Texas-Mexico border regions, from ejido to ranch to the visual arts community.

The Marfa Triptych Part One: Country and Western Big Band Suite, is an instrumental suite for 13 players, described by Reynolds as “classic instrumental country meets Western soundtrack meets power jazz rhythm section.” This performance includes contributions from country music veteran Redd Volkaert, along with other members of Reynold’s far-reaching group of collaborators.

This project is inspired by Reynolds’ trips from his base in Austin, Texas to the high desert grasslands of Far West Texas that Ballroom Marfa calls home. His approach combines local musical traditions — from cowboy songs and Southern jazz to the norteño music of Northern Mexico — with a personal perspective that comes from years of scoring film, theater and modern dance performances.

As the project springs from the culture of Far West Texas, Reynolds is currently in the process of working with Ballroom Marfa to coordinate research trips throughout the region in order to experience its culture and history firsthand. Through his own connections and via sources recommended by Ballroom, Reynolds has been keeping an itinerary that includes visits with musicians, historians, storytellers, artists and local legends from Terlingua, Alpine, Presidio, Shafter, Fort Davis, Valentine, Marfa and other far-flung locales in the Big Bend region.

This is the first installment in Reynold’s documentation of his progress, with more to come.

Click here to take a listen to demo versions of two songs from the Country and Western Big Band suite.

Research excursions to Pile of Rocks and Fort Davis in search of inspiration and subjects.

The double rainbow seemed like a good sign for this project.

My interview with Adam Bork led me to watch the sunset from a bench on the west edge of town.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, August 26, 2013

CONTACT
Nick Sifuentes, 310-866-1692, [email protected]

Marfa Dialogues/NY Releases Two-Month Schedule of Events Examining Climate Change Through Art, Activism and Science

More Than 30 Leading Cultural, Academic and Advocacy Organizations Involved in Interdisciplinary Project to “Spark a Citywide Conversation about Climate Change”

New York, NY – The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Ballroom Marfa and the Public Concern Foundation today released the calendar of events for Marfa Dialogues/NY, a two-month series of events beginning this October that will combine art, activism and science to bring together disparate audiences for a broader and deeper examination of climate change.

More than 30 of New York’s leading cultural and academic institutions are participating in Marfa Dialogues/NY, hosting a variety of events ranging from an installation on the High Line to a food truck that will provide an unconventional serving of foods vulnerable to climate change. The two-month calendar of events features a mix of environmental panels, live theatre, major art exhibitions, installations, community forums, musical performances and more – all accessible to the public and available via broadcast and digital media.

A calendar of events is available at www.marfadialogues.org. Program descriptions and dates from Ballroom Marfa and the original 18 partners are available below. More programs will be scheduled over the next several weeks as additional partners finalize their events and new partners join the project. Additional partners currently include BAM, WNYC, American Institute of Architects New York, the Judd Foundation, Creative Time, the Buckminster Fuller Institute, Hester Street Collective, Waterwash, EcoArtSpace, Dia Art Foundation, and Cape Farewell.

Find a preview of our programming after the jump …