Art Production Fund and Ballroom Marfa
For one year, while at Ballroom Marfa, I travelled regularly to Valentine, Texas, working alongside the installation's caretaker, Boyd Elder, to look after this distinctive public sculpture.
My most treasured memory: standing inside the installation, looking out at the high desert, vacuuming. Few people have seen the view from within.
Elmgreen & Dragset created this permanent land art project in 2005, commissioned by Art Production Fund and Ballroom Marfa. It sits in Far West Texas grasslands, shaped like a Prada boutique. The piece creates deliberate tension between consumer culture and empty landscape.
Challenge: Managing a high-profile permanent land art installation in an extreme desert environment, balancing artistic integrity with practical preservation needs and complying with Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) regulations, and environmental forces (oh, so much dust).
Connected Projects: Marfa Dialogues Houston, Sacred Art, U.S. Man and the Biosphere Program.
Applications to future work: Cultural translation between global and local contexts, extreme environment management principles, and stakeholder management approaches valuable for high-visibility projects.
Themes: Dust, wind, rain.
