Art in the Middle of Nowhere - the Desert Mirage of Prada Marfa

In “Introduction to Travel Writing and Empire: Postcolonial Theory and Transit” Steve Clark asks the following question:

“Who actually reads travel books? If the discovery itself has no existence of its own without the traveller . . . returning and bringing it into being through texts, this process of 'meaning-making' requires further clarification, particularly if travel writing is to be regarded as 'having produced the rest of the world' for a home audience.

This question of intended audience and the interrogation of who, exactly, travel writing is for conjures a specific argument I have had countless times at 3 am after several bottles of wine guzzled in the company of good, argumentative friends: for whom is the art we create intended? Is art created for art’s sake? How are one’s identity and context interpreted by a diverse audience? The stories in this blog are now accessible to English-reading people across the globe. Perhaps some of them will visit the strange places I account within this digital narrative structure. Perhaps they will come away from these places with a completely different impression than what I intended. And I will have to live with that. Once art is created, does it still truly belong to the artist?

Take, if you will, Prada Marfa. Located in Valentine, Texas, where dust and cobalt sky stretch endlessly. The road undulates like a sidewinder through the dirt until suddenly, you see it. You are inclined to think it’s a mirage, except why would your brain hallucinate a Prada store in the middle of nowhere?

Who is this for, you think, followed closely with but why, though?

Prada Marfa, a bizarre architectural sculpture nearly thirty miles from the town famous for mysterious lights in the desert, takes the form of a freestanding Prada storefront. The luxury store within the harsh, indifferent context of the desert is whimsical, wonderful, and oh so weird.

The building itself, inaugurated in 2005, is made of typical materials: adobe, plaster, paint, glass, aluminum, fiberboard, and carpet. The traveler cannot physically enter the space because the door does not actually open. Instead, the entire structure is an illusion, and may perhaps be a commentary on how we assign value to material objects. On the front of the structure, two large windows display genuine Prada shoes and handbags, curated and provided by Miuccia Prada from the fall/winter 2005 collection; artists and creators Elmgreen and Dragset were actually given permission from the company to use the Prada trademark for this art installation.

The original vision of the creators, with assistance from architects Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello, was that the building would never be repaired and would instead slowly degrade into its surroundings. The plan changed after Prada Marfa was graffitied and robbed the night the structure was completed.

Prada Marfa went largely unnoticed by the Texas Department of Transportation, either flying under the radar or deliberately ignored for eight years. Then, Playboy erected a 40-foot-tall neon bunny along the same stretch of road, which attracted negative attention to both installations. Both the Playboy neon bunny and the Prada sign on the Marfa installation were considered by authorities to be advertisements, and permits are required to display advertisements along a US highway on unlicensed land. Both installations violated billboard specifications and demands to remove the neon bunny grew into a clamor overnight. However, no action was taken against Prada Marfa. In 2014, officials announced that the structure would be reclassified as a museum. Prada Marfa was safe. However, the neon bunny was forcibly removed from the site.

When one encounters Prada Marfa, there is a bizarre sensation of vertigo that comes from a struggle between the brain’s inclination toward meaning-making and a vision that just doesn’t make any sense. Casey Blanton writes that “As every travel writer knows, maps and books can tell only part of the truth. By what process, using what models, does the traveler presume to describe, to interpret, to represent people and places who are other to him?” How will my travel writing be interpreted by different audiences, I find myself pondering. What details will I use to tell these stories, and how will my sensibility effect how these stories are perceived?

I think the creators of Prada Marfa were asking similar questions when they decided to create their bizarre opus in the middle of nowhere. I am aware that art ceases to belong to the artist as soon as it enters the public sphere, and so I will be very intentional in the ways that I represent people and places that may be new to me as I write about my travels.

I encourage you to sit with the image of Prada Marfa for a while. Perhaps watch the sun sink below the horizon as the sky behind the storefront bleeds pink, gold, and earthshadow blue.

Perhaps an answer to questions of artistic intent and meaning will drift toward you on the hot desert wind. Perhaps the witch-lights know, and will tell you if you follow them.

Stay tuned for another post on Marfa, Texas - in which, dear reader, we will encounter the mysterious ghostly orbs that appear in the desert when the conditions are just right.

Until then . . .

Stay weird.

Works Cited:

Blanton, C. (1997). Narrating the self and other: A historical overview. Travel writing: The self and world. Twayne Publishers.

Cohen, Alina (May 25, 2018). "The Fake Prada Store in the Texas Desert That Became an Art Mecca". Artsy.

Clark, S. (1999). Introduction to Travel Writing and Empire: Postcolonial Theory in Transit. Zed Books.

Playboy intervention threatens greatest little Prada shopfront in Texas". The Guardian. Associated Press.

Wilson, Eric (September 29, 2005). "Front Row; Little Prada in the Desert". The New York Times.