Art News

Tough Times in Remote West Texas: Vandals Target Quirky Art Project Prada Marfa

VALENTINE, TX (AP).- These are tough times for Prada Marfa, the quirky art project standing alone in the remote desert of Jeff Davis County in far West Texas. If the harsh environment doesn’t provide enough stress, the 15-foot-by-25-foot adobe cube building intended to masquerade as a boutique of the luxury Italian fashion house is being battered by vandals. Graffiti is spray painted on an exterior wall and bullet holes pepper the windows that front U.S. Highway 90 about 35 miles west of the internationally known art mecca of Marfa. A steel post that held a dedication marker next to the structure appears to have been mowed down by a vehicle. “I’m disappointed with the way it is,” says Boyd Elder, the local site representative for the 6-year-old $100,000 project designed by Berlin-based artists Michael Elmgreen