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 organization's Art Production Fund and Ballroom Marfa in 2005. It was not a work commissioned by the fashion brand Prada nor had the fashion brand had any involvement in the creation of this work. They kindly gave us permission to use their logo after we asked them, due to the founder Miuccia 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 the advertisement must be based on criteria more accurate than just including any sign which contains a logo. It is an advertisement only when a company either commissions someone to make such a sign, pays for its execution, or makes a sign itself 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.