Focus on Prada Marfa and explore the Sculpture.
Designed to resemble a Prada store, the building is made of "adobe bricks, plaster, paint, glass pane, aluminum frame, MDF, and carpet." The installation's door is nonfunctional. On the front of the structure there are two large windows displaying actual Prada wares, shoes and handbags, picked out and provided by Miuccia Prada from the fall/winter 2005 collection; Prada allowed Elmgreen and Dragset to use the Prada trademark for this work. Elmgreen and Dragset originally had wanted to place the sculpture elsewhere and was interested in a "Prada Nevada", but failed to find support in the state. They were then helped by the New York-based Art Production Fund (APF) which connected the artists with Ballroom Marfa in Marfa, Texas, a center of contemporary art and culture.  The installation was then placed at a location northwest of Marfa near Valentine, Texas, where a local artist Boyd Elder served as caretaker for the installation.Prada had previously collaborated with Elmgreen and Dragset in 2001, when the artists attached signage to the Tanya Bonakdar Gallery in New York City with the (false) message "Opening soon—PRADA". Prada Marfa is located relatively close to Donald Judd's Chinati Foundation. The site-specific of Prada Marfa invites for a comparison with other art movements such as minimalism and land art, which are equally dependent on the site where they are placed. Prada Marfa relies almost entirely on its context for its critical effect. The "sculptural Intervention" can be interpreted as criticism of consumerism, luxury branding and gentrification, but whether intentionally or not, it is also argued it reinforces the capitalist values it criticizes. Therefore, this work of art experienced a change of meaning and gained an ambivalent moment, that the artists did not expect. Along a ledge that runs around the base of the building, hundreds of people have left business cards, weighed down by small rocks.
Valentine, Texas gentrification land art Prada New York City Marfa paint sculptural Texas Art Production Fund Marfa, Texas sculpture business cards Chinati Foundation minimalism Valentine glass Miuccia Prada left Donald Judd Boyd Elder aluminum plaster trademark Sculpture carpet consumerism MDF