Prada Marfa — Marfa, Texas, 2015

"Prada Marfa" — Marfa, Texas, 2015 Fine Art Print — Roadside Series by Thomas Hoeffgen

There is no town like Marfa. There is no place like Marfa. There is certainly no store like this one.

Travis and Joshua stand in front of the most famous fake boutique in America — one on each side of the entrance, like doormen at a store that will never open. The symmetry is perfect and completely accidental. The Prada awnings read crisp against the white facade. The West Texas desert stretches endlessly behind it in every direction — dry scrub, wire fencing, mountains low and blue on the horizon, and a sky so clean and wide it makes the building look like a prop.

It is a prop. That's the point. Elmgreen & Dragset planted it here in 2005 and walked away. No road sign. No parking lot. No explanation. Just Prada, in the middle of nowhere, completely serious about itself.

Shot wide and low from across the empty highway — the full scale of the landscape pressing in from all sides, the building small but absolutely certain of its place in it. The two figures ground it. Without them the image is a landscape. With them it becomes a conversation about art, commerce, absurdity, and the particular magic of Marfa that draws people off the highway and keeps them there.

The light alone was worth the drive.

From the Roadside series — a road trip from Chicago to Los Angeles along Route 66, shot on assignment for Timberland that evolved into a self-published book and PDN Photo Annual Award winner (2016).

Available as a museum-quality fine art print on premium archival paper, in multiple sizes. Signed by the artist.