The Prada Marfa sculpture just north of Valentine is now under scrutiny by the Texas Department of Transportation, which has ruled it is not art, but advertising and is illegal. After eight years, this artwork could be torn down.
Today, we offer some remembrances, some news and some background to help you make up your own mind.
Our Texas Mountain Trail was established in 2005, and our Executive Director wrote this in her personal blog after seeing the newly erected structure along the side of the road:
"One of my favorite drives is down to Marfa,
about an hour from Van Horn. Because I'm still new to the long isolated
distances and always prepared for any contingency in the desert, I
ready myself like an astronaut going into space. My Subaru roof antenna
is plugged into the office cell phone, on my lap and in vibrate/ring
mode. Check. My personal cell phone, also on the lap in vibrate/ring
mode. Emergency water and powerbar on the floor on the passenger side.
Check. Two more gallons of emergency water is behind my seat (we're in
the desert, for crying out loud!) CDs on the seat beside me.
Check. Personal emergency kit (with foil blanket, candle, and fish
hook?) in the glove box. Check. Then the usual auto checks--gas, oil,
etc. Check. Check. Check.
Once I settle in, I'm ready to enjoy the ride.
By
late summer, I started to recognize the landmarks, and I noticed a
curious structure being built on the side of the road. Odd. Too small
for a house or store. Too large for a bus shelter, and too far from
anything to house kids waiting for the school bus. Yet, there it was,
being patiently built by a small crew of men, just a few miles north of
Valentine, population 247. A boxy-looking thing, way out in the middle
of the desert nowhere.
In
early October, I took that road home to Van Horn. The first clue was the
portable lighted sign by the only gas station in Valentine. "Welcome
Prada Marfa," it said. Huh.
Then I sped by, way too fast to get anything but a hint of what it was. Stop the car, back up. What?!? A Prada store?
There,
perfectly and beautifully positioned in the desert, is a sealed time
capsule, a non-functional full-sized reproduction of an urban boutique
Prada store stocked with the fall 2005 line of shoes and purses. It
makes me happy just to look at it. It will decay in time, and the ruin
will become part of the landscape."
An update on the controversy and the news from KFO News in El Paso, via the Alpine Daily Planet:
MARFA — Italian handbags and shoes line a store front window
along a U.S. highway in the middle of a West Texas desert, but the store has
never made a sale.
Of course, it’s not a store at all.
After eight years, the Prada Marfa sculpture outside of
Valentine, Texas, has come under the scrutiny of the Texas Department of
Transportation.
The iconic art sculpture serves as a pop-up art installation
and is entirely sealed off to the public, but a recent controversy involving
TxDOT and a famous bunny may close the shop that never even opened.
A spokesperson for TxDOT told the Associated Press that the
artwork is an illegal roadside advertisement.
This only happened after Playboy erected its neon bunny logo
a few miles down the highway from the Italian fashion house sculpture.
State officials gave Playboy until October to take down the
40-foot structure, which some in Marfa tell KFOX14 didn’t sit well with some
locals.
“There been a lot of controversy about that because it’s a
Playboy bunny. I think if it were anything else they wouldn’t have a problem
with it. All the young people in town love it; it looks really cool when it’s
lit up,” said lifelong Marfa resident Andrea Estrada.
TxDOT officials said neither Prada Marfa nor the famous
bunny have permits or license to “advertise” on the side of a U.S. highway.
Now questions remain about what will happen to Prada Marfa.
“Oh I don’t know. Prada’s been there for so long. Do you
think TxDOT would go after that?” asked Marfa resident Brenda Garcia.
It’s hard to say what will happen to the famous artwork. If
those high heels could talk, they’d tell of the thousands of photos snapped in
front and famous visitors, like Beyonce and everyday visitors like Kelly
Robinson from Austin.
“It’s just like what I imagined,” said Robinson as she
looked upon the small building.
While state officials may try to paint Prada Marfa with the
same brush as the Playboy image, the local art commissioners behind the project
say it’s black and white because Prada Marfa simply isn’t an advertisement at
all.
“It’s eight years down the road to find out that it’s being
misinterpreted as an advertisement, and to have any threat of being taken down
is you know, upsetting,” said Melissa McDonnell Lujan, deputy director of
Ballroom Marfa.
Ballroom Marfa is one of the commissioners behind the
project; Lujan said the state has yet to contact them about the issue.
“Prada didn’t pay for any of the sculpture. It’s completely
funded through the non-profits,” said Lujan.
“We don’t want to see Prada Marfa taken down. We want it to
stay. It’s not corporately funded. It’s not to promote Prada Marfa,” said
Lujan.
- See more at:
http://alpinedailyplanet.typepad.com/alpine-daily-planet/2013/09/artists-release-statement-community-reacts-to-prada-marfa-controversy.html#sthash.RZJv3RB7.dpuf
MARFA — Italian handbags and shoes
line a store front window along a U.S. highway in the middle of a West Texas
desert, but the store has never made a sale.
Of
course, it’s not a store at all.
After eight years, the Prada Marfa
sculpture outside of Valentine, Texas, has come under the scrutiny of the Texas
Department of Transportation.
The iconic art sculpture serves as a
pop-up art installation and is entirely sealed off to the public, but a recent
controversy involving TxDOT and a famous bunny may close the shop that never
even opened.
A spokesperson for TxDOT told the
Associated Press that the artwork is an illegal roadside advertisement.
This only happened after Playboy
erected its neon bunny logo a few miles down the highway from the Italian fashion
house sculpture.
State officials gave Playboy until
October to take down the 40-foot structure, which some in Marfa tell KFOX14
didn’t sit well with some locals.
“There been a lot of controversy
about that because it’s a Playboy bunny. I think if it were anything else they
wouldn’t have a problem with it. All the young people in town love it; it looks
really cool when it’s lit up,” said lifelong Marfa resident Andrea Estrada.
TxDOT officials said neither Prada
Marfa nor the famous bunny have permits or license to “advertise” on the side
of a U.S. highway.
Now questions remain about what will
happen to Prada Marfa.
“Oh I don’t know. Prada’s been there
for so long. Do you think TxDOT would go after that?” asked Marfa resident
Brenda Garcia.
 |
We're not sure who added the bike signs or when they
popped up along the side of the road near Prada Marfa, but
they were fun to spot! |
It’s hard to say what will happen to
the famous artwork. If those high heels could talk, they’d tell of the
thousands of photos snapped in front and famous visitors, like Beyonce and
everyday visitors like Kelly Robinson from Austin.
“It’s just like what I imagined,” said
Robinson as she looked upon the small building.
While state officials may try to
paint Prada Marfa with the same brush as the Playboy image, the local art
commissioners behind the project say it’s black and white because Prada Marfa
simply isn’t an advertisement at all.
“It’s eight years down the road to
find out that it’s being misinterpreted as an advertisement, and to have any
threat of being taken down is you know, upsetting,” said Melissa McDonnell
Lujan, deputy director of Ballroom Marfa.
Ballroom Marfa is one of the
commissioners behind the project; Lujan said the state has yet to contact them
about the issue.
“Prada didn’t pay for any of the
sculpture. It’s completely funded through the non-profits,” said Lujan.
“We don’t want to see Prada Marfa taken
down. We want it to stay. It’s not corporately funded. It’s not to promote
Prada Marfa,” said Lujan.
 |
At times, folks have left their business
cards along the
structure at Prada Marfa |
MARFA — Italian handbags and shoes line a store front window
along a U.S. highway in the middle of a West Texas desert, but the store has
never made a sale.
Of course, it’s not a store at all.
After eight years, the Prada Marfa sculpture outside of
Valentine, Texas, has come under the scrutiny of the Texas Department of
Transportation.
The iconic art sculpture serves as a pop-up art installation
and is entirely sealed off to the public, but a recent controversy involving
TxDOT and a famous bunny may close the shop that never even opened.
A spokesperson for TxDOT told the Associated Press that the
artwork is an illegal roadside advertisement.
This only happened after Playboy erected its neon bunny logo
a few miles down the highway from the Italian fashion house sculpture.
State officials gave Playboy until October to take down the
40-foot structure, which some in Marfa tell KFOX14 didn’t sit well with some
locals.
“There been a lot of controversy about that because it’s a
Playboy bunny. I think if it were anything else they wouldn’t have a problem
with it. All the young people in town love it; it looks really cool when it’s
lit up,” said lifelong Marfa resident Andrea Estrada.
TxDOT officials said neither Prada Marfa nor the famous
bunny have permits or license to “advertise” on the side of a U.S. highway.
Now questions remain about what will happen to Prada Marfa.
“Oh I don’t know. Prada’s been there for so long. Do you
think TxDOT would go after that?” asked Marfa resident Brenda Garcia.
It’s hard to say what will happen to the famous artwork. If
those high heels could talk, they’d tell of the thousands of photos snapped in
front and famous visitors, like Beyonce and everyday visitors like Kelly
Robinson from Austin.
“It’s just like what I imagined,” said Robinson as she
looked upon the small building.
While state officials may try to paint Prada Marfa with the
same brush as the Playboy image, the local art commissioners behind the project
say it’s black and white because Prada Marfa simply isn’t an advertisement at
all.
“It’s eight years down the road to find out that it’s being
misinterpreted as an advertisement, and to have any threat of being taken down
is you know, upsetting,” said Melissa McDonnell Lujan, deputy director of
Ballroom Marfa.
Ballroom Marfa is one of the commissioners behind the
project; Lujan said the state has yet to contact them about the issue.
“Prada didn’t pay for any of the sculpture. It’s completely
funded through the non-profits,” said Lujan.
“We don’t want to see Prada Marfa taken down. We want it to
stay. It’s not corporately funded. It’s not to promote Prada Marfa,” said
Lujan.
- See more at:
http://alpinedailyplanet.typepad.com/alpine-daily-planet/2013/09/artists-release-statement-community-reacts-to-prada-marfa-controversy.html#sthash.RZJv3RB7.dpuf
And a statement from Ballroom Marfa and the artists, with more excellent
background here:
"Prada Marfa: An Explainer
What is Prada Marfa?
Prada Marfa is a site-specific, permanent land art project
by artists Elmgreen & Dragset constructed in 2005. Modeled after a
Prada boutique, the inaccessible interior of the structure includes
luxury goods from Prada’s fall collection from that year. The door does
not open, ensuring that the sculpture will never function as a place of
commerce. Art Production Fund and Ballroom Marfa co-produced the
project.
Prada Marfa is an artwork
initiated by ourselves and realized in a collaboration with the
not-for-profit cultural organizations Art Production Fund and Ballroom
Marfa in 2005. It was not a work commissioned by the fashion brand Prada
nor had the fashion brand any involvement in the creation of this work.
They kindly gave us the permission to use their logo after we asked
them, due to the founder Muccia Prada’s personal interest in
contemporary art, and she donated shoes and bags, which have never been
renewed but stay the same – as a historic display – inside the
sculpture. The right definition of advertisement must be based on
criteria more accurate than just including any sign which contains a
logo. It is advertisement only when a company either commissions someone
to make such a sign, pays for its execution or makes a sign themselves
in order to promote the company’s products. And this is not the case
here since Prada Marfa never had any commercial link to the
fashion brand Prada, unlike the Playboy bunny which went up this summer
initiated by Playboy itself.
Prada Marfa is firmly positioned within a contemporary
understanding of site specific art, but also draws strongly on pop art
and land art – two art forms which were conceived and thrived especially
in the USA from the 1960′s and onwards. Many artists, from Andy Warhol
with his famous Campbell soup cans to Andreas Gursky with his grand
photographic documentation of retail spaces have appropriated and dealt
with the visual language of commercial brands. In an increasingly
commercialized world, we see the independent artistic treatment of all
visual signs and signifiers as crucial to a better and wider
understanding of our day-to-day surroundings, including the influence of
corporations.
It comes as a big surprise for us that the Texas Department of
Transportation now after eight years may declare this well-known artwork
to be illegal and we think it would be a shame for the local community
if it disappeared after being there for so long since the work clearly
is one of the strong points for the cultural tourism, which is such an
important financial factor in this region. However, we are very happy to
experience the fantastic support from both art professionals
internationally, locals and others, who have even created a Facebook
page named “Save Prada Marfa” that after just a short while has
received almost 4000 likes and daily receives plenty of new posts,
stories and images from people who once visited this site. "
– Elmgreen & Dragset
For more information on the controversy, read this
excellent blog post by Ballroom Marfa. Consider supporting Ballroom Marfa with a membership gift,
here. To see the "Save Prada Marfa" facebook page,
click here.
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