Michael Elmgreen, * 1961 in Copenhagen (DK) and Ingar Dragset, * 1969 in Trondheim (NO), live and work in Berlin (DE)

Prada Marfa, 2005

The artist duo Elmgreen & Dragset gained international fame for their monumental and sensational installations realized in public and art spaces. Their interventions take critical pokes at everyday notions of socio-economic realities and aesthetic canons. By setting up hyper-realistic scenes, Elmgreen & Dragset surround the spectator with surreal, yet likely environments, which prompt discussion on the ambivalent interface of art and life, narration and reality. This may be observed in The Collectors, the artists’ curatorial contribution to the 53rd Venice Biennale (2009), or in the solo-exhibition Celebrity – The One & the Many at the ZKM | Karlsruhe (2010/2011), where a four-storied residential tower block, juxtaposed with an aristocratic ballroom, drew attention to the disparities existing between the masses and the elites in present-day society.

Prada Marfa consists of a cubic, white Prada store located in the middle of the Texas desert. Although the entrance is not accessible, shoes and bags from Prada’s 2005 fall collection are on display in the boutique’s windows. In order to achieve a perfect replica, Ms. Miuccia Prada provided the goods, the right to reproduce the brand logo and even gave design instructions. A sharp critique of today’s commodity culture, Prada Marfa also plays with contemporary American art history. As a lonely, permanent luxury store in Texas’ desolated landscape, it encompasses traditional avant-garde features and could thus be considered as a true example of global contemporary Pop-Land art. (SG)

Prada Marfa, 2005