Ballroom Marfa: The First Twenty Years

A vibrant account of Ballroom Marfa’s groundbreaking first two decades of art and music

Since its founding in the storied but remote West Texas town of Marfa, Ballroom Marfa has punched above its weight. From shows including renowned artists Takashi Murakami, Rashid Johnson, and Guadalupe Maravilla, to Elmgreen & Dragset’s now-iconic Prada Marfa installation, to live performances by Sonic Youth and shock-master John Waters, to large-scale commissions from Agnes Denes and Haroon Mirza, Ballroom’s impact has reverberated far beyond the desert.

Ballroom Marfa: The First Twenty Years tells the story of this extraordinary art destination through lively firsthand accounts by internationally celebrated artists and performers such as Terry Allen, Mel Chin, Agnes Denes, rafa esparza, Loie Hollowell, Elmgreen & Dragset, Hubbard/Birchler, and Graham Reynolds, among many others. It also includes three zines capturing two decades of electrifying performances by musicians including Roky Erickson, Helado Negro, Suzanne Ciani, Lonnie Holley, Lyle Lovett, Laraaji, Joanna Newsom, Perfume Genius, Pharoah Sanders, Sonic Youth, Spoon, and Wire, to name just a few.

Ballroom Marfa: The First Twenty Years is a kaleidoscopic, lavishly illustrated collection of highlights from the museum’s first two decades, as told by the artists, musicians, curators, and community.

Ballroom Marfa was founded in 2003 in Marfa, a remote town of fewer than 2,000 inhabitants, to offer the public art across all mediums - from installations to performances, music, film, and dance. Since then, Ballroom has evolved to become not only an internationally recognized, critically hailed art museum, but also a landmark global destination.

Fairfax Dorn is the co-founder of Ballroom Marfa and the principal of the interior design collective FDP. Dorn received the Marian MacDowell Art Advocacy Award in 2023, the E. William Doty Distinguished Alumna Award from the University of Texas in 2022 and ArtTable’s 25th Future Women Leadership Award. She sits on various boards supporting the arts. Dorn holds a Bachelor of Arts and Fine Arts degree from the University of Texas in Austin.

Virginia Lebermann is the co-founder of Ballroom Marfa. For the past two decades, she has had extensive involvement with non-profit organizations in Texas and nationally and received ArtTable’s 25th Future Women Leadership Award. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Middlebury College and attended the New York University Gallatin Masters of Arts program in creative writing. She is the co-author of Cooking in Marfa (Phaidon).

Daisy Nam is the Executive Director and Curator at Ballroom Marfa. Prior to joining Ballroom, she was at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University, Columbia University School of the Arts, and the Guggenheim. She has had curatorial residencies and fellowships at the New Museum, Bellas Artes, Surf Point Foundation, and Gwangju Biennial Foundation. In 2021, she co-edited a book Best! Letters from Asian Americans in the Arts published by n+1 and Paper Monument.