Travel Guide Marfa

With a population of only 2,000, Marfa's fame is a bit overwhelming. It is located on the road between El Paso to the west and Big Bend National Park to the southeast and, as such, is passed through by thousands of visitors each year. They enjoy the Wild West feel of this quiet, rather deserted town that originally served as a watering hole for the railroads and surrounding ranches. An atmosphere that has earned it the right to host such mythical shootings as those of Giant, the 1956 film featuring James Dean in his last role, Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson, or more recently No Country for Old Men by the Coen brothers and There Will Be Blood with Daniel Day-Lewis. Strolling through its alleys, one cannot ignore the rough side of this western town. But it's the tourists from Austin, Brooklyn and elsewhere that have made Marfa internationally famous. Indeed, Marfa has become a global destination for contemporary art lovers and hipsters in need of a rural setting. This is quite a feat considering the cultural and artistic remoteness that should have been inherited by this town deep in the Texas desert. It all began in the 1970s when the minimalist artist Donald Judd, then celebrated in New York, decided to buy a former American military base to exhibit his work. Many artists followed him to Marfa in a bohemian and arty spirit that was a bit out of sync with the original city. Judd created a world-renowned art foundation, other galleries followed, as well as contemporary art installations and the entire hipster community in the United States. Today, Marfa offers both faces: that of a sleepy, rough-and-tumble town and that of a vibrant arts and culture center. The mixture of the two makes for a unique cocktail, sometimes a little unsettling in this remote corner of Texas where so many un-Texan people seem to converge.To cultivate the mystery of Marfa, strange lights appear regularly about ten miles east of town, on Highway 90. One should not fail to stop at the observation area to try to detect an extraterrestrial presence, or simply to observe the stars in a jet-black sky.