The Simpsons visit Prada Marfa in a recent escapade( image generosity The Simpsons)

The remote craftsman colony and high-desert municipality of Marfa, Texas has long been an esoteric tourist end — both for UFO hunters attempting to witness the “Marfa glowings” and for offbeat artistry categories. Marfa’s reputation as an unlikely artwork mecca was established by Donald Judd, who moved to Marfa in the 1970 s and began to create permanent projects there, eventually founding the nonprofit Judd Foundation that continues to give pilgrims access to the artist’s permanently installed life and directing spaces in downtown Marfa. The township cultivates up seldom in the cultural resource — for example, as the fix for the excellent Amazon Prime modification of Chris Kraus’s evenly excellent volume, I Enjoy Dick — but the most difficult elevate to tourism in recent years was the 2005 installation of Prada Marfa, a site-specific prowes assignment by Berlin-based art duo Elmgreen& Dragset.

Screenshots of various types of vistums from the chapter boasting Prada Marfa, including Homer counteracting himself on a graffiti’d wall that appears to be on the side of the prowes installing.( screenshots by Hrag Vartanian/ Hyperallergic)

Constructed with dispensation and donations from Miuccia Prada, the original facility peculiarity actual brand-name purses and shoes; these were stolen at one point, and subsequently replaced with security-tracked accounts. Not being an actual retail place, the area maintains no open hours, and has suffered intermittent vandalizing throughout the years. The craftsmen intended it to be left unmaintained until its eventual decomposition into the bordering desert, as a high-contrast shrine to want and unattainability, and perhaps a remembrance of the eventual transience of even the stronger social signifiers. The station has been widely acclaimed by some pundits, treated as a communal landmark by Marfa’s art community, and saw on fashion pilgrimages by luminaries like Beyonce. But Prada Marfa can now score its official move from religion artistry to pop culture, as it received its highest-profile shout-out, to time: a visit from America’s dearest household, the Simpsons.

In an escapade that aired on Sunday, January 6, and named “Made About the Toy, ” the Simpsons meeting Prada Marfa in the midst of a family street journey, and respond to the website with their signature approachings: Marge makes it for a sincere retail knowledge, Lisa knows it’s an skill installation because, of course she does, and Homer goes to relieve himself behind it.( In Homer’s defense, that wouldn’t be the least sarcastic take over contemporary artistry .)

This guest appearance recognizes an unpredictable growth of the succeed. When we consider that the cachet of high-end arts and couture is eventually about its exclusivity, perhaps achieving status recognizable to the average Simpsons viewer represents a slide into the mainstream — or, even worse, pret-a-porter. But I prefer to take the opposite idea, optimistically hoping that this shout-out from America’s adorable domestic avatars will drive Fox viewership to heretofore untapped levels of cultural knowledge, or at least to see the far-flung fringes of Texas as full of potential for something besides a prejudiced territory wall.

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