From Los Angeles Times:
Here in remote West Texas, where rodeo means bulls and broncos, is a tiny store adorned with canvas awnings carrying the logo of the Italian fashion house Prada. On view inside are 20 women’s shoes and half a dozen handbags — some in the four-figure price range.
But the “store” is not a store. It’s a work of art called “Prada Marfa.” And the place turns motorists’ heads as they speed along this wide-open, desolate stretch of U.S. 90.
A pair of Berlin-based artists, Danish-born Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset of Norway, designed the art as a “snapshot” in time meant to succumb naturally to the elements over the years.
Milan-based Prada SpA has supported contemporary art for years. Miuccia Prada, the fashion house’s chief designer and granddaughter of company founder Mario Prada, selected the items displayed at the Marfa project. She says the work illustrates “a deep-seated anxiety, as well as an extricable link, between art and fashion.
“It is an intelligent work, and rather than shy away from it, we recognize the strength of its statement,” she said. “Seen from a distance, the structure seems more like a simple cube set in the desert than it does a boutique. While ‘Prada Marfa’ may overtly comment on fashion, it also refers to the influence of minimalist art, as well as to vernacular architecture.”
Art Review magazine described the project as causing “aesthetic friction in an iconic wilderness.”
