West Texas | Arts & Culture Texas

Colette Copeland: My Jesse James Adventure at the Old Jail Art Center and Jody Klotz Fine Art

Sherry ChengJune 7, 2022

Driving alone through the middle of the country, spanning nine states and more than 4,000 miles, Dallas-based artist, cultural critic, and social activist Colette Copeland spent three summers visiting the numerous sites where Jesse James lived and outlawed, filming on location throughout her performative journey....

AbileneAlbanyArtWest Texas9 min read

Representation in the Borderlands: UTEP Brings Latinx Theater to El Paso

Trevor BoffoneOctober 2, 2019

On August 3, 2019, El Paso entered the national zeitgeist when an active shooter killed 22 people at a Walmart. The shooter’s goal: to kill as many people of Mexican descent as possible....

El PasoFeaturesLatinx TheaterTheaterWest Texas4 min read

Shifting Landscapes: Learning from the Land at Texas Tech

Laura AugustApril 17, 2019

In 2016, Claudia Vásquez Gómez, an artist from Chile, was especially struck by the way border police attached tires to the backs of their vehicles, dragging them across the desert....

ArtWest Texas6 min read

Border Crossings and the Transborder Biennial at the El Paso Museum of Art and Museo de Arte de Ciudad Juárez

Leslie Moody CastroJune 27, 2018

Extending nearly 2,000 miles from the state of Texas, though Southwestern New Mexico, along the southern edge of Arizona to California, and all the way to the Pacific Ocean, the border of the United States and Mexico is a massive, expansive region....

ArtWest Texas7 min read

Imaginary Concerts & Charged Objects: Marfa Myths/Hyperobjects at Ballroom Marfa

Joseph WoznyMarch 17, 2018

Sitting at a red light in Houston, behind a Range Rover with an “I [red cube] Marfa” (like I [heart] NY) bumper sticker, I’d say Marfa’s myth is at peak mythology....

ArtMusicWest Texas6 min read

Tierra. Sangre. Oro.: Rafa Esparza at Ballroom Marfa

Nancy ZastudilDecember 6, 2017

An adobe brick archway made by artists Rafa Esparza and Beatriz Cortez reorients and frames the entrance of Ballroom Marfa for the exhibition Tierra. Sangre. Oro., on view through March 18. ...

ArtWest Texas4 min read

Oz and Odessa Collide: Kelly O’Connor at the Old Jail Art Center

Illa GauntSeptember 20, 2017

Two hundred miles separate the West Texas towns of Albany and Odessa. Best known for oil derricks and high-school football, Odessa is home to artist Kelly O’Connor’s maternal family and serves as the thematic basis of her work on display at the Old Jail Art Center in Albany, on view through Feb. 3, 2018....

ArtWest Texas5 min read

Disco Balls in the Desert and other Marfa Adventures

Nancy WoznyJune 14, 2017

When I saw that this year's Marfa Sounding focused on the great California-based legend and dance maker Anna Halprin, I knew that I had to make trek to Marfa for Memorial Day weekend....

DanceWest Texas9 min read

Differences Intertwined: Teresa Margolles at UTEP Rubin Center for Visual Arts

John PlueckerFebruary 12, 2017

How might artists use their work to create connections across difference in these difficult times? Two shows currently exhibited at the Rubin Center for the Visual Arts at the University of Texas El Paso provide partial responses to this difficult question. ...

ArtReviewsWest Texas6 min read

The Varieties of Experimental Experience: Soundings on Marfa Sounding

Joseph WoznyJuly 24, 2016

The thing about writing about “experimental music” is that the phrase “experimental music,” if it means anything anymore, means too many things. ...

FeaturesMusicWest Texas16 min read

Playing the Block: Maria Chavez at Marfa Myths

Veronica SalinasFebruary 25, 2016

Marfa Myths is the devil-may-care response to the revelry of SXSW. Curated by Ballroom Marfa and Brooklyn-based record label Mexican Summer, the festival returns March 10-13, 2016, with a cultural program that fuses music, art, and film. ...

MusicWest Texas5 min read

Opera in the Desert: Fire Island Opera Festival in Marfa

JOHN DeMERSDecember 16, 2015

If you took the Santa Fe Opera’s summer performance schedule and, while you were busy flipping through the season, also replaced the white-tablecloth tailgating, the candelabras and the Veuve Cliquot with boots and cowboy hats, you’d have a general feeling for the Fire Island Opera Festival presented by Marfa Live Arts....

MusicWest Texas4 min read