Art Cowboy

 

12/4/2025

Song about city artists decamping to Marfa, alluding to Donald Judd (or James Turrell), an "artrepreneur" before it was a term.

Art cowboy
Cowboy art
Places for a cowboy
To make his art

Leaving for a small town
That cowboy-smart
Confident and secure
Is what you are

Open up to people
And what they are
But you're just a cowboy
That cowboy's smart

Art cowboy
Cowboy art
Places for a cowboy
To make his art

Concrete and glass
Art in the Plexiglas
Summer nights
Watching the Marfa lights

The artrepreneur
As a local archetype
Stopping at the Prada
Is just the start

Art cowboy
Cowboy art
Places for a cowboy
To make his art 

***

The riff for the riff:

Documentary on the Perspective channel about Donald Judd, one of the most interesting artists of the 20th century in my view, in the sense that his philosophy involved the power of place, and the ability to negotiate artistic ideals with locals, i.e. the sense that a New York liberal whose art we don't understand. 

Interesting how he finessed being an artist in a country where most working class people have contempt for artists and did it with a rugged individualism that people actually took seriously. He felt that the dichotomy between one's job and one's life was false. He saw the most important aspect of his life's work as the demonstration that art, architecture, and thought are interrelated.

The cowboy they interviewed was an interesting counterpoint: Both archetypes have similarities as well in the sense that there's a mystique to both that exudes a sense of confidence that people can feel intuitively --that you can "own"  being an artist--to the point where even a cowboy or cattle rancher can accept. There's a power in feeling confident about who you are and what you think life is about, and being comfortable in your own skin. 

His daughter said that artists are the most important people in society and can serve a useful role beyond making things decorative or pretty, which Judd was obviously successful at. He wasn't about the idea that art is frivolous--it can be a top-level framework for living a rich inner life by creating a "district" for it--in this case almost an entire town, rescued by art. It's an idea that could be repeated in any town or village that needs revitalization.