Prada Marfa

Most outrageous things I know about came from Kenny Goldsmith, whose conceptual art class I took many [2] years ago. Prada Marfa is no exception! It's basically a free-standing Prada store, installed as a permanent sculpture on a desolate strip of highway in West Texas. It has no working door, and it never opened.

Two Berlin artists, Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset, are responsible for the concept, but naturally it was heralded--and funded--by the New York art scene. According to the NYT article about it from '05, "The piece hints at subjects to which designers are sensitive: the unchecked growth of luxury brands, the temporal relevance of fashion, retail as tourism and a culture that is devoted to buying and selling." Don't think this needs to be over-intellectualized though; putting a mini Prada in the middle of nowhere is standalone amazingness.

It's worth noting that P.M. has recently come back into cultural consciousness since there's a "Prada Marfa" sign up in the Van der Woodsen household on Gossip Girl. This is 'cause the people brokering the show's contemporary art--the ladies at Art Production Fund--are the same that funded the original. Go fig.