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The World's Loneliest Prada Store
If you're ever travelling at night on Highway 90 in the desert near Marfa, Texas, you might notice the glimmer of an illuminated 15 x 25 box. A closer look at this lone-standing building, and you'll notice that it's filled with rows of Prada shoes and handbags. This is PRADA MARFA.
Prada Marfa is a piece of sculptural art. It has sat untouched in the Texas desert since it "opened" on Oct. 1, 2005. The sculpture was designed by two Berlin artists, Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset, with the intent of playing on the public's minds.
The building itself is made of biodegradable adobe, meant to slowly melt back into the landscape. The artists erected the sculpture to start questions like, "When is advertising art?" and "What is art, anyways?"
Elmgreen and Dragset have made this statement about their desert mirage:
"... the combination of a vast, open desert landscape in an un-populated area and a luxury goods store is completely unthinkable. Nature suits fashion as a visual backdrop, as one often sees in advertisement. The minimal, corporate Prada design and the desolate surrounding ranch land make a great impression together, but simultaneously the two forces also render each other useless."
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