Concrete Art
Thursday, 30th October 2008 by John Andresen
Here in Marfa, TX, we can see the patterns of 15 Untitled Works in Concrete, a massive concrete installation at the Chinati Foundation, a contemporary art museum conceived and founded by the artist responsible - Donald Judd.
Judd was a minimalist sculptor who purchased this 1.4 km² of desert in 1979 as a non-profit art foundation dedicated to Judd and his contemporaries, like the previously featured (1, 2, 3) GSS favourite Claes Oldenburg.
15 Untitled Works in Concrete actually consists of sixty five-metre-long concrete boxes, which are divided into fifteen differently arranged groups. The entire piece stretches nearly a kilometre across the desert, which might explain why it took Judd four years to complete!
The Chinati Foundation website has some good photos images of the work from the ground.
Thanks to Nathaniel, who has actually eaten lunch inside one of these pieces of art!
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Donald Judd had two sons – one called Flavin Starbuck, the other called Rainer Yingling! Somehow i cant see them two ending up working in ASDA with names like that!
One of the other artists who has work at the Chinati Foundation is Dan Flavin. I wonder how that came about?
That’s not really all that impressive as far as concrete art goes I’d say. Have a look at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin View Placemark It consists of a 19,000 square meter (4.7 acre) site covered with 2,711 concrete slabs … The Wikipedia article has some nice ground level shots
@Tammo – we actually featured the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe back in January on Holocaust Memorial Day.
After looking around, this place looked like one of the most terrifying places in America until closer inspection of the land from Marfa to Carlsbad to 285. Those little white gridded lines/dots aren’t cute little homesteads. What are those?