Marfa Prada
— a closed boutique with no one to walk in.
Not only on a wall.
Marfa Prada, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
“A small adobe-and-plaster building set by itself on U.S. Highway 90, 26 miles northwest of Marfa and a mile and a half outside Valentine. The artists Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset finished it in October 2005. Inside the locked door sit fall 2005 Prada shoes and bags, donated by Miuccia Prada herself. Nothing opens. Nothing sells. The desert keeps going past on both sides. from the studio
The place, in three passes.
Prada Marfa is a permanent land-art sculpture by the Scandinavian artists Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset, completed on October 1, 2005. It sits on the north side of U.S. Highway 90, about 26 miles northwest of Marfa and 1.4 miles northwest of the small town of Valentine in Jeff Davis County. The work was commissioned and is maintained by Ballroom Marfa and the Art Production Fund. It is built of adobe, plaster, paint, and glass at the scale of a small luxury boutique, and is intended to slowly return to the desert over decades.
The building is a single room, roughly 15 by 25 feet, with two display windows and a locked entry door. The interior holds Prada shoes and handbags from the fall 2005 collection, donated and selected by Miuccia Prada herself. The right-foot shoes were chosen as a quiet deterrent to theft. The sculpture has been broken into and tagged on several occasions, most notably in March 2014 when an artist covered the facade in messages. It has been restored each time to the original 2005 specification.
Prada Marfa stands on a public highway pullout and is visible from U.S. Highway 90 day and night. There is no admission, no signage, no parking lot, and no staff; visitors park on the shoulder. The door does not open. The sculpture is roughly a 35-minute drive northwest of Marfa, in the direction of Van Horn. The town of Valentine, population around 130, sits a mile and a half southeast. Spring and fall offer the most comfortable visiting conditions on the high plain. The light at dusk is particularly favored by photographers.
