Richard Prince (Contemporary Artists

by Rosetta Brooks, Jeff Rian

Richard Prince (b.1949) emerged in the 1980s as one of America's new, highly innovative artists working with the margins of America's subcultures and visual debris. The appropriation and re-presentation of highly idiosyncratic subject matter - such as one-line jokes, off-colour cartoons, cowboys ('borrowed' from Marlboro ads) and motorcycle gangs - are essential to his work. In the late 1970s Prince was working for the cutting services of Time Life publications in New York, where he had access to thousands of cut-up magazines in which only the advertisements remained intact. He began to re-photograph the advertisements and compose his own pictures from this highly familiar imagery, updating 1960s Pop art's homage to consumerism and its icons. Decades later, his career took an unexpected turn, and the artist emerged as a consummate painter, producing some of the most unusual and intensely admired works in the current painting scene. Prince is one of America's best known artists and in 1992 was honoured with a one-person retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Other museums that have held solo shows of Prince's work include the Museum Boymans-van Beuningen in Rotterdam, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Kunsthalle Dusseldorf, IVAM in Valencia and the Haus der Kunst in Munich. Prince's highly readable Interview with Jeff Rian ranges in its subject matter from rock and roll to folk art, from criminals to celebrities, as well as his experiences and history as an artist. In her Survey, Rosetta Brooks examines the variety in Prince's art through two key the notion of artistic authenticity and the artist's construction of his own beguiling personality. Renowned photography critic Luc Sante takes a close look at one of Prince's best known and most disturbing series, Girlfriends, a confounding combination of sexiness and sexism. For his Artist's Choice Prince has selected the lyrics from "Fallen for You", a 1992 pop song by singer/songwriter Sheila Nicholls. Prince's signature laconic writing style is represented by autobiography, fiction, observations and confessions.

Genres: Art

160 pages, Paperback

First published August 6, 2007

Reviews

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Two years ago, the Guggenheim Foundation bought Richard Prince's Second House in Upstate New York. This year, a survey exhibition of Prince's work, "Spiritual America" opened at the Guggenheim museum in New York City. It's funny sometimes what can lead one to seek out more information about an artist. The recent Art Issue of "W" magazine made me curious about Richard Prince. The covers of that issue were "rephotographs" of paparazzi pics of movie stars with fake autographs signed by Prince. And beyond that, a photo essay of designer Marc Jacobs' home showed some of Prince's work on the walls. (Another picture in this issue shows Matthew Barney hurling on a sailboat, another image I never thought I'd see in a fashion magazine.) This led me to read the monograph published in conjunction with the Guggenheim show (which runs through January 9, 2008.) What's great about this book is that most of those interviewed about the art of Richard Prince are not people from the Art World Establishment. Comedians (Phyllis Diller!), a rare book dealer, the editors of a tabloid and of a biker magazine, a songwriter, cartoon editors, Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth, the VP of design for Ford Motor Co. and Sonny Barger, notorious member of the Hell's Angels. This diverse list of fans reflects the wide range of territory Prince has explored over the past 30 years. His photography might be a picture of a detail of a magazine advertisement, his sculpture a restored 1971 'Cuda muscle car sitting in the grass outside his Second House, his painting a large canvas with a recycled Rodney Dangerfield joke, a drawing simply a collage of "redrawn" New Yorker cartoons. Prince's impressive collection of rare books includes foreign editions and bound galley proofs of work by two of my favorite writers: Kerouac and Brautigan. This monograph is refreshingly void of the academic artspeak nonsense of many Contemporary Art publications. A lot of Richard Prince's artwork just looks cool, and Phyllis Diller and John Waters express that simple declaration better than any critic from Artforum. I plan to visit Minneapolis next year to see for myself when "Spiritual America" travels to the Walker Art Center, running from March 22 through June 15.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Can art be more real than life?

Underneath each picture is always another picture.

Now we've got a body with two sexes, maybe more, and a head that looks like it's got a different birthday.

To make it new was to make it again, and making it again was enough for him and almost him.

What is the void that all his all his assumed identities conceal?

The cowboy of the mind is everywhere.

[Tom Choi · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great humorist; a good critic; a decent, occasionally brilliant, visual artist. The reproductions of the "Nurse" series are alone worth the steep price. Also noteworthy are the collection of interviews with fellow artists, critics and celebrities from all walks of life and Richard Prince's interesting take on his own biography.

[Matt · Rating 2 out of 5]

An excellent catalogue and survey of one of the most influential artists of the late 20th century up until today.

[Kit · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars for the art and some of the interviews (Phyllis Diller!)