Pililgrimage and verifications

"Marfa is a little town lost in the desert. Its cultural mediatization participates in the development of a myth started with the project of permanent installation by Donald Judd. What is known here in Europe is mainly transmitted through books, catalogs, newspapers, documentaries and websites. Despite this diversity of information, we know that words and images have a fragmented value which can not replace the physical experience of a work of art. We have all experimented this situation of discovering a piece which we already virtually know. This path make us somehow the children of the artists of the Grand Tour, a journey through Europe from the seventeenth century in order to visit the places of interest. An intellectual training and an art experience.

The various writings and paintings that reflect the educational trail are fascinating in the way they celebrate the direct perception of works of art. The copyists are not limited to strictly reproduce the works but integrate them into their environment. Similarly, travel stories tell us how artistic tradition determines the way we view the concomitantly reality , the way we seek the impressions and the images that we keep in mind1. The history painter William Hilton expressed this idea in his travelogue written in 1825: «The light and shadow of Italy is greatly more vivid than in England; The light presents an intense yellow halo and the shadows, when the sky is reflected, have more azure reflections ; but when the refracted light emanating from a hot object, the shadow is strong and determined and largely has the same effect that you can find in Guercino’s paintings». Going to the discovery of the works, he’s looking for the lights and colors he was able to discern in the paintings, sometimes without any success : «So far I have not been able to discover the distant tones of azure that we can see among the great masters»2.

In the compilation of his writings, Donald Judd devotes two chapters to Marfa and the Chinati Foundation3. He explains the reasons why he planned these permanent installations and how he did it, expressing as much interest to describe the reasons for its location in Marfa. Based on a series of anecdotes, he strives to accurately describe the context which he considers as fundamental for the reception of his work. Surprisingly, he summarizes his choice by simple arguments, far from a direct artistic intention: «I chose the town of Marfa because it was the most welcoming and most practical.» However, he expressed the importance that represents to him the idea of a work of art immutably linked to its exhibition context. «Somewhere, a sample of contemporary art must exist as an example of what a work of art in context means, exactly like the standard meter of platinum and iridium guarantee the exact measurement he represents, a measure as accurate as any art must exist for this particular place and time. Otherwise the art will be reduced to mere entertainment and combines». Thereby, it seems impossible to people who does not go on site to escape from an incomplete perception. However, the abundance of photographic reproductions and texts on specific interventions is the basis of artistic learning. A feeling of «Déjà-vu» that the Americans coming in Europe may also experience4.

How artworks knowledge determines our relationship with the place where it exists and how Judd made a place for artworks depending on their context represent two important aspects for me. Indeed, my work is directly connected to this story of time and space. It occurs in different forms and scales depending on the site and circumstances of production. My projects are based on the cultural, architectural, topographical, or historical specificities of the site, questioning the common perception and the representations that we can get.
My projects uses this set of codes while engaging shifts or disruptions resulting in a drastic or insidious change in the site.
As it is difficult to cross the Atlantic with an air spray or a tool kit, so I choose to take with me the bare minimum necessary for my artistic survival. A light backpack, good walking shoes, a notebook and pencils, measuring tape, camera, and a laptop. On-site resources have to be basic: Texas maps, a printer and internet, a vehicle to get out of town and possibly transport equipment, a list of rental tooling places and material suppliers.

My work involves of a circulation of representation modes, from the model (Truth and Lies of the geometrical figure, 2008) to the confrontation between a site and its own image (The Shape Of Things to Come, The Center for telecommunications, 2010). This kind of slip could potentially be applied to works already present in Marfa, taking place directly next to the installations of Donald Judd. This issue of the work in the work, related with the painters of the Grand Tour, is here to be imagined, starting from a process of inquiry or investigation.

The travelogues are ubiquitous in the writings of Judd. He explains, for example, the prescient aspect of his first crossing of Texas as a soldier in 1946. This same year, Marfa Army Airfield was declared surplus by the military, leaving the way open for his future projects.

Such associations constitute research topics that could be addressed as my starting point for this residency. Thus, the omnipresence of the Texas landscape is inevitably an attractive appearance, bordering the picturesque, which may very well be reversed, bypassed and mixed with other cultural codes. The Ghost Towns, vestiges of the Wild West, are part of this phantasmagoria of the American desert. They are part of a vocabulary of broken, outdated and stereotypical forms that it is worth considering as a possible area of artistic activity. In continuation of the collecting process that I can set up in my own work5, I propose to rely on the book Ghost Towns of Texas6 as well as online resources devoted to this subject7. I would like to visit a few towns, located within a reasonable distance of Marfa like Girvin, Pecos County, Lobo, Culberson County , or Cedar Station, Terrell County.

Last curiosity spotted from my workstation, much of the air bases located around Marfa are now close to ruin8: the concrete runways deteriorated and, from the sky, they can surely recall some of the founding earthworks. Some tracks are still used today and gliding sessions are available from the Marfa municipal airport9. It would be interesting to divert this type of entertainment by using it as a tool for an aerial art project, considering the possible interventions according to this extremely connoted point of view. Benoît-Marie Moriceau

1. Pascal Griener, The Grand Tour as a personal experience - The European discovery of the work of art in Italy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in the Great workshop - Pathways of Art in Europe, Vth-XVIIth century, Actes Sud, 2007, p.47.
2. Attilio Brilli, when travel was an art, the novel of the Grand Tour, Gérard Montfort éditeur, 2001, p.126.
3. Donald Judd, Writings 1963-1990, Daniel Lelong éditeur, 1991, p.170 and p.186.
4. Serge Paul, Land Art and the American myth of the frontier: a yearning for conquest in Writing in the Border directed by Sophie and Nathalie Martiniere Menaheze Collection Espaces Humains, Presses Universitaires de Limoges, 1998
5. Visual sources, Iconography of black constructions, pp. 51-66, Psycho, Monographik Editions, 2010
6. T.Lindsay Baker, Ghost town of Texas, University of Oklahoma Press, 1991
7. http://www.ghosttowns.com
8. Paul Freeman , Abandoned & Little-Known Airfields, Marfa Army Airfield / Presidio County Airport, 2011. http://members.tripod.com/airfields_freeman/TX/Airfields_TX_BigBend.html...
9. Marfa Gliders, tp://www.marfacc.com/todo/aviation.php

Benoît-Marie Moriceau : Concrete Sunset