Along a highway in western Texas, in the southwestern United States, there is an art installation that has become a small pop phenomenon known throughout the world: it is Loot Cargo, which reproduces a small boutique of the famous Italian fashion house in the middle of the Chihuahua desert, in a place away from everything. It is a very well-known work and photographed by anyone passing by, and even though it is technically located in another municipality – Valentine – it is considered one of the symbols of the town of Marfaa small town that has turned into an exclusive tourist destination thanks to its contemporary art installations.
(AP Photo/ Matt Slocum, File)
Prada Marfa is a permanent installation created in 2005 by Scandinavian artists Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset with the permission of fashion designer and entrepreneur Miuccia Prada, executive director of the Italian company. Those displayed in the “shop”, which has lots of windows and the brand logo, are real Prada products, but the shoes are all right-handed, to discourage any thieves. The work was conceived in theory as a critique of consumerism and capitalism, which however ended up owing its success precisely to the mechanisms it criticized. Due to her great aesthetic effectiveness and the fact that she was in the middle of nowhere, she had immediately stood out, becoming famous especially between 2018 and 2019 after appearing in a photo of the American singer Beyoncé shared on Instagram and in an episode of the Simpson.
Sixty kilometers further south-east, about a hundred from the border with Mexico, is instead Marfa, which has just under 2,000 inhabitants and was described a few years ago by a resident interviewed by Vanity Fair come «a utopia» for the inhabitants of the East Coast, i.e. the other one compared to the one in which it is located (in reality it is geographically more or less in the middle of the United States, but culturally Texas is part of the Western United States), but from which came Donald Juddthe New York architect and designer considered to be the founder of Marfa as it is known today.
Just like Prada Marfa, Marfa city is located in the middle of nowhere but is full of art galleries, elegant restaurants and trendy bars. It attracts artists, designers, directors and rich people every season, it has inspired a art magazine and there are regular events, including a film festival. According to journalist Carolina Miranda, in the United States it is spoken of “with the same reverential tones with which a pilgrimage to Lourdes is generally referred to”. For Miranda, Marfa seems «sort of a western-themed Brooklyn outpost».
Until about fifty years ago Marfa was a rural community based mostly on farming. Its first settlement dates back to the late 19th century, but it developed particularly after the war, thanks to the construction of an airstrip. From 1945, after its closure, the town began to go through a slow decline: when Judd settled there, often considered one of the greatest exponents of the artistic movement of minimalismwas a virtually unknown place.
In the early 1970s Judd bought several lots of land in Marfa and began to place his installations there, such as those in concrete and enamelled aluminium, also collecting the works of other artists, including Robert Irwin, Carl Andre and Roni Horn. In a short time, thanks to his influence, Marfa began to be known as a favorite destination for artists and art lovers, where the onlookers also passed, attracted by luminous phenomena that could be observed nearby, known as the “lights of Marfa”.
Some works by Donald Judd in Marfa
However, it was in the years following Judd’s death in 1994 that the small town became an attractive destination especially for a certain type of public. Between the late 1990s and early 2000s, some private investors began to renovate its buildings and opened exclusive hotels and restaurants; at the same time new exhibition spaces and events were inaugurated designed to encourage tourism based on art, making it fashionable among people accustomed to other contexts.
As they told Axios some residents of Marfa, the turismo and the substantial investments of recent decades have saved a community that otherwise would have all but disappeared, as has happened in some of the more remote areas of Texas. At the same time, this kind of attention has ended up putting the locals in trouble.
An installation by Robert Irwin in Marfa
Although tourism greatly helps the local economy, today many historical residents struggle to live there. Axios explains that in Marfa it is rare to find houses for less than 500 thousand dollars (more or less 450 thousand euros), and it is a big problem if we consider that according to official data the average income of its approximately 1,790 inhabitants is just over 39,000 dollars (35,000 euros). From 2015 to today, the cost of houses has increased by 254 percent, with consequences on the standard of living of the population and with the result that many residents have been forced to move elsewhere.
The mayor of Marfa, Manuel Baeza, said that the huge increase in house prices is explained at least in part by the city regulation, which significantly limits urban development and therefore the construction of new homes. As often happens in the United States, the most disadvantaged appear to be residents of Latin American origin, who according to i official data in 2000 they were 70 percent of the population, while today they are 60.
Furthermore, the majority of those who benefit from tourism are made up of people who have recently arrived, and not those who have lived there for some time, he explained to Axios Abby Boyd, president of the town’s Chamber of Commerce. Recently, the Chamber has begun to put pressure on the local government to regulate short-term rentals, which according to the consultancy AirDNA, also cited by Axiosaffect nearly 20 percent of local homes.
Mike Livingston, one of the Marfa residents interviewed by Axios, said Judd’s intention was to settle in an isolated place and not to attract large numbers of tourists, as has happened particularly after his death. Rob Weiner, former director of the Chinati Foundation, the museum founded by Judd in 1986, he recounted to NPR that the artist had the ambition to contribute to the economy of Marfa, but with much more pragmatic projects, such as making it a self-sufficient community. At the same time, however, her influence served to open up the mentality of the locals, who in general today are much less closed than they used to be, recalled Martha Ryan Stafford, a retired teacher and Marfa resident.
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