image via U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

Jason Farago contrasts the Marfa-adjacent public sculpture from Playboy, “the troubled, “aspirational lifestyle brand”” with Elmgreen and Dragset’s Prada Marfa in The New Republic:

It’s one thing, though, for artists like Elmgreen and Dragset, with their evidently ersatz shoe emporium, to mock the larger art world’s absorption by the commercial domain. It’s quite another for a corporation itself to get in on the act, underwriting branded material that’s intended not as a critique of commercialization but as a simple PR opportunity. Enter, then, Richard Phillips—an artist who has made his name through a deft imbrication of high art and the commercial sphere. If you’re familiar with the name, it’s probably thanks to a TMZ-friendly exhibition he mounted at one of Gagosian’s many New York spaces last year: a series of giant paintings of Lindsay Lohan, not photorealist so much as just really, really big. He also won a spate of press coverage for a film he made of Lohan, posing à la Brigitte Bardot in Contempt.

It’s a great read, recognizing both the “cunning” nature of the Playboy project, and the naievete of its more histrionic detractors, saying …

When all of the susurrus around this Playboy Marfa, Marfa Girl, Prada Marfa, 60 Minutes, Donald Judd thing dies down and the camera crews and installation teams go home, we’ll dial up this fresh video full of San Carlos horse races, Pinto Canyon cruising, Las Pilas cannonballs and DQ snacking from Shorthorn MVP Duemolly, Lebarton, Ben-Yehuda and all the next gen rap cats, skate bros and synth class alums in the Stomach Club crew and remember why everybody covets a piece of this Far West Texas/North Mexico vibe. Get more Duemolly at Stomach Club.