The Prada Marfa displays Prada handbags and shoes. Photo by Gary Warren/ladailypost.com

By GARY WARREN
Photographer
Formerly of Los Alamos

Prada Marfa is a permanent art installation located about 26 miles north of Marfa, Texas. The structure is 25 feet wide and 15 feet deep. 

The freestanding building was built solely for this art project and was completed in 2005.

You could say that the project is located in the middle of nowhere as it sits alongside U.S. Highway 90 and is surrounded only by west Texas ranch land and some rolling hills.

The art installation was created by artists Ignar Dragset and Michael Elmgreen. The building is intended to look like a Prada storefront. Inside are two displays with three Prada handbags on each display. The back wall has three rows of shelves with several Prada shoes (all left foot) on display.

Surrounding the Prada Marfa is a wire fence. Visitors have been attaching or locking locks of love all over the fencing. Locks of love are padlocks, which are locked to fences (or other structures) by couples to signify their love for each other. The locks of love are an added element of surprise to this remote art project.

Editor’s note: Longtime Los Alamos photographer Gary Warren and his wife Marilyn are traveling around the country and he shares his photographs, which appear in the ‘Posts from the Road’ series published in the Sunday edition of the Los Alamos Daily Post.