Chinati Community Day This Sunday

The Chinati Foundation is pleased to invite all Big Bend area residents and visitors to a free Community Day celebration on Sunday, June 15th.

Visitors can explore the Chamberlain Building, Donald Judd’s concrete and aluminum sculptures and Dan Flavin’s evocative light installations at their own pace from 10-2PM, and enjoy light refreshments kindly donated by local establishments. (Museum staff and volunteers from the community will be on hand to answer questions.)

The celebration will continue from 6-9PM under the Highland Street pavilion along the railroad tracks with a delicious free BBQ prepared by local caterers Lopez's Kitchen, and music performed by Mariachi Aguila.

Community Day is generously sponsored by Pablo Alvarado, Janie and Dick DeGuerin, Dennis Dickinson/Exhibitions 2D, Jeanette and Rand Elliott, Charles Mary Kubricht and Ron Sommers.

This year, an expanded Community Day and new educational programs throughout the year will take the place of Chinati Open House in October. Chinati especially looks forward to inviting Big Bend residents to the public opening of its Fall exhibition featuring the work of Scandinavia’s foremost abstract artist, Olle Baertling, on October 11.

One Someone Anyone, at Galleri Urbane

Opening reception July 5th 7-9 pm

Galleri Urbane / Marfa announces a new exhibit, “One Someone Anyone” by Bret Aaker, Alyson Fox, John Mulvany, and Morgan Sorne.

“My last two summer shows were photography shows centered around portraiture – self portraits as well as photos of anonymous people, eccentrics, or simply people in precarious situations,” says Galleri Urbane owner Ree Willeford. “These paintings call a similar kind of attention to the strangeness of the human condition, to the inherent diversity and to the perennial sense of loneliness and anonymity.” Of course, each artist has a distinct style and technique.

The show includes seven drawings by Austin artist Alyson Fox. For her canvases, the artist used found book covers. The images are delicate and transfixing family sagas featuring nameless and faceless characters. “My drawings are an ongoing series of one made up little family with half true narratives,” explains Fox. “I work from my own relationships and frustrations to develop the stories. The main themes in the work are sexual angst, gender roles, the play between objects and humans, violence and curiosity.”

Fox uses ink, colored pencil and watercolors to create her simplified human forms, which are drawn in contour with blank faces. An abundance of vacant space surrounds the images; allowing the viewer to conceptually fill in the story and choose their own endings, particularly ones that entail an ominous portent of things to come.

John Mulvany’s oil and acrylic paintings are equally haunting. For example, in “Fall” (36x36 acrylic/oil on canvas), two young boys are wielding rifles outside a suburban home. They are wearing black suits and appear to be standing; yet their pants descend into a whirl of black, emanating from the earth. Suddenly the boys are no longer boys, but dark specters, surrounded by colors that are both fiery and autumnal.

“In 1996, I visited Mexico for the first time. Having been born and raised in Ireland, Mexico was an amazingly exotic and alien place,” explains Mulvany, who now lives in Austin. “Then I began to see parallels between Mexican art and culture and Irish Celtic culture; the mixture of Catholicism and pagan indigenous cultures, the sense of a society coming to terms with its unique character and history after centuries of colonial and religious domination and particularly the enduring strength of folk art and literary mythology.”

After visiting Frida Khalo’s house in Mexico City, Mulvany was struck by her collection of Retablos, postcard-sized paintings, full of religious and mythological imagery, portraying miracles and saintly interventions in everyday life. “The images were painted in a manner which suggested they were revealed to the artist in a flash then fixed directly on the surface,” says Mulvany, whose work conveys a similar sense of immediacy and revelation while appearing remarkable reflective. “In my paintings I try to explore ideas of dogma, superstition and fundamentalism in religion and politics using images from the past, from Irish and American history, juxtaposed with contemporary suburban settings. For me they represent the constant intrusion of the past into our lives.”

Morgan Sorne also deals with history, ritual and tradition in his work. “One Someone Anyone” features ten of Sorne’s mixed media pieces, nine of which are life-size paintings of children dressed in wild colors and patterns. Some of the children carry knives and spears, and are wearing extravagant attire, such as ornate headdresses and hot pink tights featuring red hearts. He calls these children his moon kids, and there is certainly something otherworldly about them. But they, like all of the images in his work, also represent very human themes.

“My work currently deals with rituals, traditions, rites of passage, loss, and the spirit child,” explains Sorne, who finds many of characters and environments in books, then cuts them out in order to create intricately layered drawings and paintings. “This work represents a reconciliation with personal trials and tribulations from my childhood,” says Sorne. “It’s also about perceptions of innocence and how those perceptions shape and define one’s identity.” Despite the serious thematic aspects of the work, Sorne also captures the whimsical nature of the human experience.

Bret Aaker also calls attention to the unpredictable with his “Capricious Series,” a succession of rich paintings featuring images culled from a series of Francisco Goya etchings from 1799. Caprice means a sudden unexpected action or change of mind. The Goya series was entitled Los Caprichos. “These prints illustrated a Spanish society of vain, greedy, and impulsive people where reason had gone to sleep,” says Aacker. “He used allegorical and fantastic images to illustrate his commentary of what he observed. Explaining one of his etchings he wrote, ‘He who yesterday played the part of the bull today plays the bull fighter.’"

Aaker placed the images on a field of color, removing details and blotting out their faces. He rearranged the figures, creating new compositions. Large expanses of solid colors paired with fluid contours and animated figurines recall the work of Henri Matisse, yet the work is truly his own.

“The capricious whims of fate are awaiting every one of us who proceed through life,” says Aaker. “And it seems that humans are still behaving the way Goya saw them two centuries ago, violently struggling for wealth and power, cloaked in a thin cape of morality.” This series is a natural progression of Aakers work, much of which has been show in previous exhibitions at Galleri Urbane. Once again, he’s using simple direct lines and solid areas of color, however, now he’s purposefully synthesizing art history with contemporary aesthetics.

About the artists:
- Alyson Fox has a BA in photography from FSU, and an MFA from University of Colorado. She is a visual artists and clothing designer.
- John Mulvany was born and raised in Ireland. He currently lives and works in Austin, TX.
- Morgan Sorne was born and raised in Tallahassee, Florida. He moved to Austin in September of last year. Sorne graduated from Florida State University with a BFA in Studio Art. He is a musician, actor, visual artist, and writer.

- Bret Aaker was born in Vietnam in 1967. He received a BA from The Evergreen State College, Olympia, WA, and is currently an art instructor at Amy Biehl High School in Albuquerque, NM.

The show begins July 5th through August 2008 .
Galleri Urbane is open daily Mon-Sat from 9-6 /Sundays 11-4 or by appointment.

Upcoming Marfa Public Radio Talk Show Guests

Visiting and local personalities are featured on TALK AT TEN on Marfa Public Radio (KRTS, 93.5 FM). The morning interview program is heard weekdays at 10 AM - and replays weekday evenings at 6:30 PM.

Upcoming guests:

Thursday, June 5: Greg Hennington of Terlingua, discussing Wilderness First Aid.
Also Amanda Chisholm and Julie Balovich, Alpine lawyers who represented members of the FLDS group in El Dorado.

Friday, June 6: Ruben Martinez, artist-in-residence at the Lannan Foundation in Marfa.
(Later, at 3:30 PM, Texas musician Guy Forsyth.)

Monday, June 9: Karl Stephan, Texas State University, on the Marfa Lights.

Tuesday, June 10: Jeremy & Andy of kART Across America, cross-country art project.

RADIO SERIES ON CHRISTMAS MOUNTAINS

KRTS 93.5 FM presents a special series on recent issues surrounding the Christmas Mountains during MORNING EDITION, Monday June 9 through Friday June 13. (MORNING EDITION can be heard weekday mornings, from 5 AM to 9 AM.)

MARFA PUBLIC RADIO can be heard on your radio dial at 93.5 FM.

THE HAVELS @ Goode Crowley

Sunday 18 May 2008

Doors 7.00pm / Show 7.30pm

Goode Crowley Theater

Tickets $10 at the door

Irena Havlová and Vojtěch Havel, the duo who are The Havels, have been collaborating for more than fifteen years, making music that has been described as “a duet between violoncello and piano taking place in a cathedral of sound.” In truth their music encompasses even more, with the artists often incorporating Tibetan bowls, bells, harmoniums, gongs, silver cups and stones to create a distinct and experimental sound. In Marfa, The Havels will perform in part on the extraordinary Renaissance instrument, the viola da gamba.

Havlová and Havel started working together in the mid-80s, in the experimental Capella Antiqua e Moderna ensemble, which won them both public and critical acclaim. The repertoire of that unique association of musicians of their generation – well versed in music history – spanned various styles of European classical music, ranging from the Renaissance to contemporary music. Within this context, Havlová and Havel developed a very unorthodox approach to both historical and modern compositional techniques and interpretive procedures.Since then, The Havels have collaborated intensively with many other leading Czech and foreign artists with noted partners including Jiří Stivín, Czech jazz multi-instrumentalist of world renown; avant-garde drummer Alan Vitouš; and impulsive guitarist Tony Ackerman as well as dancers Karel Vaněk and Eva Černá, painter Radek Pilař, and others. They have traveled extensively, making return trips to the desert villages of Rajasthan, India where they recorded hours of folk and spiritual music that was released on four CDs (Agni, Maha Rudra Yagya, Sri Mahaprahuji Bhajans, Sri Madhavananda Bhajans), a distinct selection within their impressive eighteen-album discography.

The Havels are sometimes classified as belonging to a specific musical current, however, labeling their music as alternative, global, new acoustic, improvised, experimental, minimalist or meditative music, means classifying it in categories that very often actually tell nothing about its form and content. The means they use for their expression are so varied and permanently changing that any attempt to verbally describe their musical dialogue falls short. The only thing that can be said with certainty is that the music is always highly poetic, enchanting, and delivered with absolute sincerity and unusual humbleness with the idea of carrying a genuinely peacemaking message.

The Havels are making only a few rare performances on this tour of the United States, and Ballroom Marfa is honored to host the duo at the Goode Crowley Theater on Sunday 18 May, 7.30pm. Ballroom welcomes everyone to join us for this special evening with two very unique performers. Tickets are $10 each at the door, with all proceeds benefiting the musicians directly.

The 2008 music program has been made possible by the generous support of Ballroom Marfa's Front Row Members.

5th Chinati Symposium This Weekend

The Writings of Donald Judd
A symposium to be hosted by the Chinati Foundation on May 3 and 4, 2008.

The Chinati Foundation is pleased to announce a symposium dedicated to the writings of the late artist and the museum’s founder Donald Judd. Eleven participants will present lectures on a range of topics, including the relationship of Judd’s writing and his art; his use of language; how Judd produced and edited his writings; his views on politics and architecture; his philosophical influences; and the relevance of his writings today. The weekend program will be moderated by Prof. Richard Shiff of the University of Texas, Austin and will feature the following lectures:

Allan Antliff, Ph.D., Canada Research Chair in Art History, University of Victoria, Canada: Donald Judd’s “First Element”: An Anarchist Genealogy

Mel Bochner, Artist and Critic, New York: Judd: His Writing and Influence

Richard Ford, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus and former Chairman, Department of Languages and Linguistics, The University of Texas at El Paso: Donald Judd - Wordsmith

Thomas Kellein, Ph.D., Director, Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Germany: Basic Assumptions

David Rabinowitch, Artist, New York and Wiesbaden, Germany: Statements Relevant to Don Judd’s Notion of “Object”

David Raskin, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Art History,
Theory and Criticism, School of the Art Institute of Chicago: “Judd’s Scale”

Richard Shiff (Director of the Center for the Study of Modernism at the University of Texas, Austin): Specificity

Roberta Smith, Art Critic, The New York Times: Specific Objects: the Essay, the Art, the Misunderstanding

Karen Stein, Architectural Critic, New York: “The Plain Beauty of Well-Made Things”
Ann Temkin, Ph.D., Curator, Museum of Modern of Art, New York: Barnett Newman and Donald Judd: Artist as Polemicist

Nicola von Velsen, Editor, DuMont Literatur und Kunst Verlag, Cologne: Bilderstreit: Iconoclastic Controversy and Language Battles

Limited seats are still available for the weekend program; reservations can be made by calling Chinati at (432) 729-4362. Portions of the symposium will be broadcast live by Marfa Public Radio (KRTS) at 93. 5 FM and over the internet at www.marfapublicradio.org

The Writings of Donald Judd is the fifth symposium organized by the Chinati Foundation, following Art and the Landscape (1995), Art and Architecture (1998), Light in Architecture and Art: The Work of Dan Flavin (2001), and It’s All in the Fit: The Work of John Chamberlain (2006). It will be documented in a paperback volume to be published by the museum later in the year.

Say "Hello" To The Meth Lab Before "Goodbye"

The opening reception for Hello Meth Lab in the Sun has come and gone, but if you haven't had a chance to see this amazing intervention, visit the lab before it says "goodbye" on August 3rd.

Ballroom Marfa's Spring 2008 exhibition is a collaboration between three early career artists, Jonah Freeman, Justin Lowe and Alexandre Singh. In an installation that literally transforms Ballroom's gallery spaces into a labyrinthine assemblage of rooms, hallways, closets and observation platforms, Hello Meth Lab in the Sun is a rumination on the theme of alchemy, uncovering of some of the sites of alchemical transformation in the modern world.

Like the dioramas of the Museum of Natural History or the period rooms of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Hello Meth Lab in the Sun creates theatrical depictions of three specific social/historical contexts: the utopian hippie commune, the clandestine meth lab, and the varied sites of modern industrial production. Each room and object is suggestive of a state of transformation or hybridization: vegetables into broth; match heads into meth; sugar cane into Mountain Dew.

Hello Meth Lab in the Sun takes up alchemy's method of homespun experimentalism, bonding unlikely ingredients and ushering in a secular mysticism. One room reads as an Upper East Side apartment converted to a lifestyle museum, with a collection of black and white society photographs documenting hermetic rituals with cacti and crystals. This is a world reminiscent of Norman Mailer's 50th birthday party and the final scene in Polanski's 1968 horror film, Rosemary's Baby.

Another room reveals itself as a laboratory cluttered with crates of cold medicine, boxes of matches, containers of cat litter and glassware for the mass production of narcotics. Here not only are materials transformed, their intended uses are subverted along with consumerism's tenets of freedom, happiness and choice. The lightly veiled intimacy between the lawful and the deviant is put on display.

The zeitgeist of 1960s counterculture is channeled by Hello Meth Lab in the Sun, although at times it's more "living dead" than a romantic flashback. The shag carpet is well worn, the furniture stained, rooms have been incinerated. Ceilings are low and the hallways are tight - these spaces are under surveillance.

The southern most room of the gallery is a tweaked out hippie kitchen, with paraphernalia that cross the cosmic forces of natural living with tech-based media. Overhead is a geodesic-dome structure, Buckminster Fuller's ideal design for making more from less. A broken refrigerator is the portal to a terrarium of hybrid objects.

Artist Bios

Jonah Freeman was born in 1975 in Santa Fe, NM and lives and works in New York City. He has exhibited widely since the late 1990s throughout the United States and internationally with photographs, video projections and installations that explore the psychology of architectural spaces. Recent solo exhibitions include The Long Goodbye (with Michael Phelan), John Connelly Presents, New York (2007); The Franklin Abraham, Galerie Edward Mitterand, Geneva, Switzerland, M Projects, Paris, France Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York and Play Gallery, Berlin, Germany (2005, 2004); and In the Public Realm: Sixteen Scenarios, Public Art Fund, Brooklyn Public Library, Brooklyn, NY (2002). His work has also been represented in the recent group shows: Le Centre pour l'image contemporaine, Saint gervais, Geneva, Switzerland; Grow Your Own, Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2007); Busan Biennale 2006, Buan, South Korea; Intouchable (l' Id� transparence), D�nges, Centre National d'Art Contemporain - Villa Arson, Nice, France (2006); Day Labor, PS1/MOMA, New York; and Vanishing Point, The Wexner Center for the Arts, Wexner, OH (2005).

Justin Lowe was born in 1976 in Dayton, OH and lives and works in New York City. He has been exhibiting since 2000, creating installation "environments" like gallery-lounges, cluttered house interiors and - for his 2006 solo show at Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery, New York - an intricately stocked bodega and Mister Softee truck. Lowe is also known for his collages produced in collaboration with Jonah Freeman. Select solo exhibitions include: Helter Swelter, Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery, New York, NY (2006); Collecting Pictures in the Brain Hotel, Sculpture Center, Long Island City, NY (2005); Dwellings, Brooklyn Public library, Brooklyn, NY; Waterfall, The Wrong Gallery, New York; and Passage, PS1 Special Project Room, Long Island City, NY (2004). Selected group exhibitions include: Slow Burn, Galerie Edward Mitterand, Geneva, Switzerland; Bricks in the Hood, Oliver Kamm/5BE Gallery, New York; Studio Visit, Exit Art, New York (2006); The Pantagruel Syndrome, Museum of Contemporary Art in the Castello di Rivoli, Turin, Italy; Greater New York 2005, PS1, Long Island City, NY (2005); Household Psychedelics, Fia Backstrom Projects, Brooklyn, NY (2004); and The Melvins, Anton Kern Gallery, New York, NY (2003).

Alexandre Singh is a British artist, born in Bordeaux, France in 1980 and currently based in London and New York City. His installations are recognizable by their combined structures of building materials and consumer items, accompanied by circuitous narratives and elements of performance. Singh's first solo show was held in 2007 at White Columns, New York, NY, entitled The Marque of the Third Stripe; in 2008 he will have additional solo exhibitions at Jack Hanley Gallery, San Francisco, CA; Monitor Gallery, Rome, Italy; and at the Museu da Electrcidade, Lisbon, Portugal in collaboration with Rita Sobral Campos for UNCLEHEAD. Singh will be represented in the upcoming group exhibitions: Living to tell the Tale at the Royal College of Art, London; Art Cannot be Untaught, La Rada, Locarno, Switzerland; and A New High in Getting Low II, John Connelly Presents, New York, NY. Selected past exhibitions include The First Antechamber, Projects Arts Center, Dublin, Ireland; The Singer Sucks, but the Band… Finding Good in an Otherwise Dismal World, Sunday, New York, NY; East International 17, Norwich Gallery, Norwich, UK (2007); Alexandre Singh and Goody B Wiseman, Second Gallery, Boston, MA; Slow Burn, Galerie Edward Mitterand, Geneva, Switzerland (2006); Open Walls, White Columns, New York, NY; If You're Felling Sinister, Alona Kagan, NY (2005); Romantic Detachment, PS1 MoMA, Quens, NY and New American Talent 19, Arthouse at the Jones Center, Austin, TX.

Thunderbird Lounge: New Photos by Marie Ely

Border Wall Info : ReViva Collective

May 1st from 5 to 8 PM the ReViva Collective will be hosting information tables at the Caboose Park at 5th and Holland, as well as at the SRSU campus in Alpine concerning the US/Mexico Border Wall as part of a national day of action regarding immigration issues. There will be printed information available and open dialog for people interested in addressing or learning more about the wall or other border issues.

MPR Fund Drive, Martin Guitar Giveaway

Help support public radio and be one of the founding members of KRTS. From the fine folks at MPR, we get news that 300 members just renewed and that the popular contest for the Martin guitar will go until Friday:

Many Thanks!

If you're one of the more than 300 who joined or renewed your membership this past week - THANK YOU. We're glad to include you as one of the founding members of Marfa Public Radio.

Our "first" Fund Drive will never happen again - but if you haven't given yet, there is still time. Our phone volunteers have gone home, but you still can be part of the "first" family of KRTS with an online donation through Friday (April 18). The drawing for the Martin Cowboy Guitar will be held on Friday at High Noon. New entries will be accepted until then, and any donating member is automatically entered. We've had a great time this past week, with on-air specials, concerts, and surprises at every turn. We've heard from every corner of Far West Texas - and beyond: both new voices and old friends.

There is a "first" time for everything, and KRTS is proud to serve you as the "first" public broadcaster in the region.

Many thanks,

Tom Michael

Marfa Film Festival Starts May 1

The Marfa Film Festival will be held May 1-5, 2008, screening 30 hours of features, shorts and experimental works.

Marfa is a small town alone on a high plateau, a place defined by a history of separation, where life proceeds at its own distinct pace as a harmony of antithesis: cowboy culture and high-art. Designed as a gasp of fresh air, Marfa Film Festival is a retreat far away from the chaotic and competitive environments found on the festival circuit. It's a get-a-way that is truly WAY out there. For five magical days we will screen films that transcend time with indelible images and engaging storytelling, reminding us that the art of cinema can change our lives and renew the world.

Because Marfa's wide-open plain, distant mountains and incomparably starry sky are part of the draw, Marfa Film Festival will have outdoor screenings during the festival. Indoor screenings will be anchored at the state-of-the-art Goode-Crowley theater. Festival headquarters will be at the famous Paisano Hotel (where James Dean and Elizabeth Taylor lived during the filming of "Giant").

Ballroom: film.text.performance.film

In December 2007 Ballroom Marfa launched film.text.performance.film, a two-part program pairing seeminly disparate areas of contemporary cinematic practice and bringing together a diverse roster of artists with established international reputations rooted in either filmic performance or visual text. Live cinema as experienced in December gives way to the projected word in April with Part II: text. Normally consumed as a solitary, interior experience, words will be amplified and magnified for contemplation by a theater audience.

In 1921 Charles Sheeler and Paul Strand collaborated on the short film Manhatta, which intercuts images of Manhattan with lines lifted from a Walt Whitman poem. The goal was not to tell a story, but to create a new cine-poetry of text and image. From this early instance, poetic cinema has evolved over epochal rifts and mergers, from Surrealism and the advent of sound in movies, through Structuralism and Postmodernism. Contemporary artists interested in the intersection of text and image, whether they take the digital road or detour around it, are defining what this tradition looks and sounds like in a time when information saturation, not to mention distortion, challenges the very meaning of word and image.

Assembling in Marfa will be a faction of contemporary artists who are peeling the page one frame-at-a-time in an inquiry into the visual dimension of language, ranging from David Gatten's reflection on the role of documents and Michael Tracy's secret, worldly recitations to Julia Meltzer and David Thorne's digital archives where images become a fault-line between world views and hidden narratives.

Friday 11 April, Goode Crowley Theater

7:00pm
Michael Tracy (Director) and Christopher Rincon (Cinematographer & Editor)
Ultramarine (work in progress, 59 min. An allegory about aesthetic crisis finds two characters, Sculpture and Music, separated by emotional and geographic distance, the alienation of urban space. Architectural settings from Mumbai and St. Petersburg are woven into a bleak pinnacle of gripping remembrance from times of final empire, creating a universe of anxiety in which neither society's decadence, nor its burden of consumption, is sustainable. Saturday 12 April, Goode Crowley Theater

5:00pm
Julia Meltzer and David Thorne: (www.speculativearchive.org)
It's Not My Memory of It (2003, 25 min) is a documentary about secrecy, memory, and documents. Mobilizing specific historical records as memories, which flash up in moments of danger, the tape addresses the logic of the bureaucracy of secrecy.

We Will Live to See These Things, or, Five Pictures of What May Come to Pass (2007, 47 min. Competing visions of an uncertain future shot in Damascus, Syria —the chronicle of a building in downtown Damascus, a recitation anticipating the arrival of a perfect leader, an interview with a dissident intellectual, a portrait of a Qur'an school for young girls, and an imagining of the world made anew.

6:45pm
David Gatten
Download PDF: Scott MacDonald interviews David Gatten for Film Quarterly
Secret History of the Dividing Line (2002, 20 min). Paired texts as dueling histories. A journey imagined and remembered. 57 mileage markers produce an equal number of prospects.The Great Art of Knowing (2004, 37 min). Find yourself resting uneasily half way up the stairs: Something has left the body, yet the body remains: what has left is on its way Elsewhere but cannot help but look back: this look animates the worldHow To conduct a Love Affair (2007, 8 min). An unexpected letter leads to an unanticipated encounter. Have a cup of tea dear. I'll trade you a stitch from the past in return for a leaf from the future.

8:00pm
Panel discussion with moderator Christian Gerstheimer, El Paso Museum of Art

Save the Christmas Mountains, Progress

Environment Texas has been working hard on the Christmas Mountains transaction. I recieved the following update from Luke Metzker, Director.

Summary: The Christmas Mountains, a ruggedly beautiful wilderness area adjacent to Big Bend National Park, were donated to the state of Texas in 1991 “for use as and inclusion in a nature park, wildlife refuge, recreational area or similarly designated use area." However, Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson is working to sell the land to private interests.

Hi Mark,

I have some good news to report! First, last week the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission voted to approve new standards to protect the Gulf of Mexico from overfishing. They approved a cap on the amount of menhaden that may be fished from Texas waters and will look into requiring independent observers on boats to monitor the "by-catch" of ocean wildlife. [1]

Second, some progress on the Christmas Mountains. In a recent letter to the superintendent of Big Bend National Park, Commissioner Patterson wrote that he has instructed his staff to work towards a transfer of the mountains to the National Park Service. Unfortunately, the Commissioner continues to push for policies that could be deal breakers. On May 5, I will testify before a legislative committee examining the controversy. [2]

Finally, after the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) received thousands of e-mails by Environment Texas supporters, the Commissioners agreed to delay action on rules related to solar energy. The PUC is now considering changes to the rules that would be more consumer-friendly. More on this next week. [3]

Sincerely,

Luke Metzger
Environment Texas Director
http://www.environmenttexas.org/

Berman Appointed Guggenheim Fellowship

Michael P. Berman, photographer and artist, has been appointed a Guggenheim Fellowship Award, 2008. The award will support his ongoing photographic work in the Chihuahuan desert grasslands of Southern New Mexico, West Texas, and Northern Chihuahua.

Galleri Urbane, Marfa represents Mr. Berman and has frequently shown his work, most recently, 480 Plates, a stunning collection of 480 individual silver prints, each subtly toned and affixed to a 5.5" aluminum plate.

In 2007, Infinite Editions Press in Denver Colorado produced “Under a Dry Moon”, a portfolio of 100 photographs by Michael P. Berman made while working in the Gran Desierto on the Sonora-Arizona border. In 2006 two books of his Gran Desierto work were published: “Inferno”, The University of Texas Press, text by Charles Bowden and “SunShot”, University of Arizona Press, text by Bill Broyles. A third book will be published in 2009, also with Charles Bowden and The University of Texas Press, and will include Berman's work from the Chihuahuan desert grasslands.

Michael Berman’s work has been exhibited throughout the U.S. and is included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Amon Carter Museum of Western Art and the Museum of New Mexico. He has received fellowships from both the Wurlitzer Foundation and the Arizona Commission of the Arts.

Much more to Marfa than the lights, or the art

A faithful reader just sent me this article that was posted in the Austin-Amercian Stateman. (thanks DD). One of the first articles that gives a little to credit to those who helped the town grow.



Much more to Marfa than the lights, or the art
A Mecca in the West Texas desert?
by Michael Barnes
Tuesday, March 25, 2008

"Marfa, visited just before the South by Southwest madness, is to Austin what Austin is to Texas.



The beauty, pleasure and companionship of the larger city is refined and concentrated in this arid Davis Mountains town, compounding Central Texas informality with West Texas "live and let live" philosophy.



Still a ranching center, Marfa's two biggest claims to fame, after the mystery lights, are the arts (Chinati, Judd, galleries, etc.) and movies ("Giant," "No Country for Old Men" and "There Will Be Blood").



Beyond that, its finest restaurants, theaters, book stores, shops and hotels rival the best in Austin, enjoyed by an isolated population of just more than 2,000.



The genius of the Marfa renaissance, partly engineered by Houston lawyer Tim Crowley — by coincidence a high school friend of mine — is the careful preservation of the past while insisting on the highest standards for the future. As opposed to the kitsch art and faux historical atmosphere of Santa Fe, Marfa's appeal comes from the big sky, resplendent light, muted colors, open spaces and some of the most sensitive renovation projects anywhere on the globe.



According to locals, a good third of Marfa's migratory flocks make the six-hour drive from Austin. Our gang of five stayed at the Paisano Hotel, and our room opened onto a sun-blanched terrace over the courtyard's traditional fountain, perfect for long reads. Steven Tomlinson and Eugene Sepulveda occupied the hotel's Rock Hudson suite — a nod to "Giant" — which expands to the size of my Austin house with an attached terrace big enough for a wedding reception, or a New Year's Eve party, which the Austin pair threw here three months ago.



Walking the wide Western streets of Marfa or dining..."
read full article

John Dwyer at Yard Dog

Yard Dog presents JOHN DWYER. John Dwyer and his band Thee Oh Sees hail from San Francisco, are on a cross-country tour that will take them through Juarez, Austin, Denver, Vancouver and points between. John's drawings are humorous explorations of his rock 'n roll fantasy. The artwork will be on display from March 7 - 14th. Thee Oh Sees played a gig at the gallery last night.

Get Your Gliding On!

March 29 - April 5, 2008 Marfa Airport
Texas Glider Rally
Glider pilots gather from across the USA to practice the "art of soaring" in their sailplanes at the Marfa Airport on highway 17. Pilots will be seeking thermal and wave lift to set international records and fly their "personal best" flights. The annual event will feature 30 sailplanes launching every day from Noon to 3:00 PM. The public is invited.

Sponsored by Marfa Gliders Soaring Center. website: www.flygliders.com
Contact host Burt Compton by email at texasgliders@aol.com


April 5, 2008 Marfa Airport
National Landmark of Soaring Dedication
Historic Marfa Airport in west Texas has been selected as the 15th "Landmark of Soaring" by the National Soaring Museum. The public is welcome to attend the dedication of the plaque at 11:30 AM with "Glider Mail" flights at the Marfa Gliders Soaring Center. Classic and modern sailplanes will be on display.

George Moffat, who brought his glider to Marfa to set world gliding records in 1962, will join a reunion of the pilots who flew at the legendary soaring contests at Marfa in the 1960's. Marfa was the site of many US National Contests and the 1970 World Soaring Championships, first ever held in the USA. Longtime residents of Marfa fondly remember the two week event and the nightly parties for the 100 visiting pilots from around the world.

Information at www.flygliders.com Click on "Landmark" button.
Contact host Burt Compton by email at texasgliders@aol.com

West Texas Roadtrip Exhibit

COLORES GALLERY OPENS NEW EXHIBIT "WEST TEXAS ROADTRIP" MARCH 14TH

West Texas Roadtrip, an exhibition of paintings by Avram Dumitrescu and Gary Wimmer, opens on Friday, March 14th, with a reception to follow on Thursday, March 20th, from 7-9PM.

A native of Ireland, Avram Dumitrescu earned his Masters in Applied Arts from the University of Ulster, Belfast. He has exhibited in group and solo shows throughout Ireland, Texas and Massachusetts. His work can be found in many private residences and corporate holdings. He has been an illustrator for The Desert Candle magazine, an upcoming biography of revered food writer MFK Fisher, and many other publications. Dumitrescu is inspired by the wildlife, landscapes and architecture encountered in his travels throughout West Texas. His large paintings of longhorns, the largest canvases he's worked to date, convey the nobility of these creatures. Smaller paintings of horses and farm fowl hang amidst canvases of hard worn trucks and a long, rushing freight train.

Gary Wimmer spent a year of self-study painting in Barcelona, Spain after completing his degree at Maryland Institute College of Art. He has exhibited in group and solo shows in Maryland, New York City and Spain and executed a ceiling mural commissioned by the American Museum of Natural History. As a scenic set designer for over a decade in stage and film, Wimmer discovered West Texas while working on a film in this area. His current cycle of paintings represents aspects of the West Texas environs that awe him with their hardscrabble beauty. His nighttime settings capture an intimate beauty, while his mountain landscapes, reflect ever-changing light and shadows of mythic clouds passing in a saturated blue West Texas sky.

The Colores Gallery is located at 904 W. San Antonio (Highway 90).
Gallery and shop are open Thursdays through Sundays, 11am–5pm.

Blumenfeld's Polar Project

inde/jacobs gallery is proud to support gallery artist Erika Blumenfeld and her new work known as The Polar Project. Since 1998 Blumenfeld has been documenting the cycles of solar and lunar light as it bends and scatters through the atmosphere. Her photo-based work has exhibited in galleries and museums throughout the United States as well as Austria, Belgium, England, Germany, Norway, and the Netherlands. Next month her work will premiere in a new museum in Sweden. Blumenfeld has worked on the preparatory stages of The Polar Project for several years. The project is an exciting environmental artwork which will bring the phenomena of light, sky, and sound in real-time video and audio - even sub zero temperatures - to select museums and non-traditional art venues around the world. The viewer will experience the Arctic and Antarctic environment in a sensory multi-media artwork. The goal of this visceral installation is to serve as an impetus for a broad global conversation regarding climate concerns. The Polar Project itself is a conversation across art, science, technology, and environmental research. Blumenfeld has already gathered a team of experts in these fields to assist in the creation of the project. You can join this effort today by participating in a special invitational fundraiser which will help launch the pre-production phase of The Polar Project! Procuring the last remaining boxes of a recently discontinued Polaroid film, Blumenfeld has created a signed limited edition of Polaroid works, Dawn, Midday, and Dusk (Dawn shown above).

These pieces are available for purchase individually for $100 each on a first come, first served basis directly through The Polar Project's website.

Vilis Inde, Director of inde/jacobs is thrilled to be supporting this fundraiser because of his belief in Blumenfeld's exceptional talent, her dedication and enthusiasm, and the goals of this timely project. Blumenfeld is an artist who can bring this ambitious large-scale project to fruition. Visit http://www.thepolarproject.com/ to learn more about the project's mission and to participate in this exciting opportunity to support The Polar Project. 100% of the proceeds from this fundraiser will go towards the project.

Mystery Lights, Then Artists, and Now Movies

A whole new wave of people are discovering Marfa due to the success of There Will Be Blood and No Country For Old Men.

If you find old material on Marfa, you'll note that the author invariably states that the only thing in Marfa is the Mystery Lights. In the last few years, the art has finally started to get top billing. Since the oscar buzz, I've had three writers contact me to talk about the effects of these movies on the lives of Marfans. I've pointed them in the direction of people involved, but I see this new wave of interest as the broadest yet. I wouldn't be surprised to see Blood and No Country fans wander out here in search for the spirit of the films much like Giant fans did 50 years ago.

Here's a slew of articles that's bound to raise some interest.

Marfa, unlikely star of the Oscars
Oscar Town: Marfa, Texas?

Back from the dead: the town that hosted two Oscar hopes

Marfa Plays Picturesque Role In The Movies

Oscar-Nominated Films Find A Home In Marfa

'Blood,' 'Country' bring Hollywood to heart of Texas

Marfa, home of 1 stoplight, 2 movies & 16 Oscar nods

An Old Town Under Hollywood Lights - Interview with Chip Love

Oscar Movies Map: Into the Wild Old Country

You shot that where? Movies use stand-in locations

Coen brothers, where art thou going to put the Oscar?

The Momentum is Unstoppable

Chinati Symposium: The Writings of Donald Judd

This year, don't miss the symposium focusing on The Writings of Donald Judd. This is Chinati's fifth symposium, which will be held on May 3 and 4. Participating speakers include: Allan Antliff, Mel Bochner, Richard Ford, Thomas Kellein, Robert Pincus-Witten, David Rabinowitch, David Raskin, Richard Shiff, Roberta Smith, Karen Stein, Ann Temkin, Nicola von Velsen, and Anne Wagner.

To attend, please call the foundation at 432.729.4362 or email info@chinati.org Seating is limited, and we heard today that about half the seats are already sold. Registration is $150.00. Members and students are $100.00.

History of the symposia: Approximately every two to three years the Chinati Foundation organizes a symposium dedicated to aspects of the museum's mission and permanent collection. The speakers invited to participate include experts in their respective fields, and each symposium has been documented with a subsequent publication.

Golden Boys at Ray's Bar

Austin's Golden Boys, most recently featured on an upcoming SXSW episode of the Food Network show "Rescue Chef," will be on tour from Feb. 23 through March 1, 2008 in support of their newest album "Whiskey Flower"

The Golden Boys, the Austin, TX, psych-country demigods, along with fellow Austin locals The Black, launch into a U.S. west coast tour in support of their newest album "Whiskey Flower" with a kick-off performance at Ray's Bar on Feb. 23, 2008. "Whiskey Flower," released in July of 2007, "set the summer on fire," according to Audra Shroder of the Austin Chronicle and has garnered mentions on "Best of…" lists from the Omaha City Weekly to the New York City-based Matador Records. Most recently, the Boys were featured on the cover of the Austin Chronicle and will appear on an upcoming episode of the Food Network's "Rescue Chef." Formed in Spring Branch, TX in 2003, the Golden Boys are comprised of Matt Hoopengardner (the White Heat), lead vocals and guitar; Wes Coleman, lead vocals and guitar; Bryan Schmitz, vocals and bass; Nathan Arbeitman, organ and trumpet; and Patrick Troxel, drums. Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore has this unwieldy compliment for the boys, "...one of the choicer garage albums of late…They have a very cracked and shakey take on raunch-hootenany-ism recalling members of the In The Red stables, as well of Memphis ' more lop-sided degenerates."

KEREN ANN with DEAN & BRITTA

KEREN ANN with DEAN & BRITTA

Friday 22 February 2008

Ballroom Marfa welcomes worldly chanteuse Keren Ann and gauzy pop duo Dean & Britta (formerly of Luna) to the Goode Crowley theater on February 22 for the second installment of its 2008 music program.

It's fitting that Israeli-born singer Keren Ann Zeidel, who lives and works in both New York and Paris, is bringing her collection of haunting, intimate songs to Marfa. Last summer, in the midst of a flurry of press for her self-titled third album, Keren Ann said that her music – with its spare melodies and haunting, forlorn lyrics about love and despair, sung in a wispy, smoky voice – are perfect for the desert. "My music has all the characteristics of dry, open spaces," she told Black Book magazine. "It puts you in an ethereal mood."

During her childhood in Paris, Keren Ann devoured Joni Mitchell and Serge Gainsbourg, the ghosts of whom are apparent on 2003's understated Not Going Anywhere. That album introduced Keren Ann's dreamy melancholy sound to the United States and was followed up in 2004 with her love letter to New York, Nolita, titled after the Manhattan neighborhood where she lived at the time.

Keren Ann will share the Goode Crowley stage with two longtime members of the indie rock pantheon: Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips. After fronting the seminal minimalist post-punk band Galaxie 500 in the late 1980s, Wareham went on to found Luna with former Feelies drummer Stanley Demeski and The Chills' bassist, Justin Harwood. Wareham's almost-monotone delivery garnered comparisons to Lou Reed, and Rolling Stone dubbed Luna's 1995 album Penthouse one of the essential albums of the '90s. In 2000, Britta Phillips – the former bass player for Babyfat and Ben Lee, and the singing voice of beloved '80s cartoon character "Jem" – replaced Harwood on bass, bringing her sultry voice to Luna's atmospheric rock.

Wareham and Phillips, who had recorded 2003's L'Avventura as a duo, continued playing under the name Dean & Britta after Luna disbanded in 2005, and went on to score Noah Baumbachs' The Squid and the Whale. Their latest offering, Back Numbers, continues the couple's foray into sleepy and sweet psych-pop. In March, Penguin Press will release Wareham's memoir about his time with Galaxie 500 and Luna, Black Postcards: A Rock & Roll Romance.

Join Ballroom Marfa for a night of pure dream pop at the Goode Crowley Theater. Doors are at 7:30 P.M.; the show begins at 8 P.M. Tickets are $20 and are on sale NOW exclusively at frontgatetickets.com.

Andrea Zuill "Concepts of Identity"

Galleri Urbane is proud to present Exhibits 2008.

Beginning on Feb 15th is an artist reception in Gallery 2 featuring west coast artist Andrea Zuill's recent oil paintings. The show Concepts of Identity will be on display thru May 2008.



Ms. Zuill starts a painting without a particular idea in mind, just an image. Trying not to question the image, but to let it take shape. When asked about recent and past work Ms. Zuill replied, "My work refers to how we see ourselves, and how we imagine our place in the world. The constant struggle for identity, beauty and a place in the natural world can be quite unnatural. Images of our physical and spiritual selves have been aggressively twisted lately."

Zuill feels that the media bombards us with ideas on how to live, look, pray and love. What one person considers as beautiful can be challenged by what the world is being told is beautiful. We are becoming a society where beauty and life has only one look. Maybe this narrowing of ideals survives because of our desperate need to fit in. So, Zuill asks, what happens when we can’t fit into the narrow slot of what is normal and beautiful?

As titled, the recent work plays with concepts of identity. It presents various body types, forms of clothing, and iconic body adornment to imply stories, histories, and sometimes, confusion. Some of the images contain contradictory symbols, which are culturally very different. Other ideas dwell on historic importance, cultural acceptance, and class systems. "The recent works by Andrea are rich and textural. After watching Andrea's work over the past 8 years, I can see that the artist is truly coming into her own distinctive style and place in the art world", says gallery owner Ree Willaford.

Also coming up at Galleri Urbane is a group show featuring gallery artist Peter Voshefski, Kate Carr, Munson Hunt, Bale Allen and introducing Ted Larsen. This show opens March 29th 6-8 p.m.

Galleri Urbane is located at 212 E.San Antonio St /Hwy 90, one block east of The Ballroom, Marfa Texas 79843. The gallery is open 10-6 daily or by appointment.