Beschreibung:

Richard Prince Untitled (Protest Painting) 1994 acrylic, silkscreen on canvas canvas 38 1/4 x 18 1/4 in. (97.2 x 46.4 cm) frame 43 3/4 x 20 1/2 in. (111.1 x 52.1 cm) Signed and dated " R. Prince 1994" on the reverse.
Provenance Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York Private Collection Lehmann Maupin, New York Private Collection, New York Catalogue Essay “It's interesting how people who were once fairly radical can become, later in life, kind of conservative and not just in terms of politics—how if you're an artist, you can start out being somewhat avant-garde and then end up doing landscapes.” Richard Prince 2008 American artist Richard Prince is the postmodern master of cultural appropriation. Breaking ground in 1982 with his infamous Cowboy Photographs, gleaned from the Marlboro cigarette campaign, his Protest Paintings continue in this vain of capturing and manipulating the visual traces of American ephemera. The Protest Paintings, created between 1986 and 1994, depict a protest demonstration placard of the kind used by activists to rally for a cause: social, humanitarian or political. Executed on a vertical canvas, the outlined shape of a protest placard is symmetrically placed and dissects the canvas into a cruciform pattern. In place of protest slogans that would normally be seen on such signs, Prince places the text of fragments of jokes with brightly colored, painterly abstraction filling the remainder of the composition. The present lot, Untitled (Protest Painting), 1994, illustrates a white wash protest sign, one which would be typically used to convey a protest or chant, which here has been replaced with one of Prince’s iconic jokes that reads: “Two psychiatrists, one says to the other I was having lunch with my mother the other day and I made a Freudian slip. I meant to say please pass the butter and it came out you fuckin bitch you ruined my life.” Beneath a joke typically lies a painful truth and for Prince, his recycled bad-taste jokes displace the public messages usually associated with the trappings of social protest. Surrounding the shape of the sign are repeated patterns of sharp alternating silver, white, and black stripes that have the menacing associations of either prison garb or steel blades. His Protest Paintings not only recycle a tasteless shrink and domineering mother joke but also cull from many different painterly techniques of twentieth century American art. The silkscreen patterns, exposed under-painting, smears and assertive paint smudges draw upon the signature techniques of artists such as Andy Warhol Jackson Pollock and Robert Rauschenberg Untitled (Protest Painting), 1994 appropriates the incisive form of the protest placard into a variable surface that can accommodate an array of verbal signs, and one where the artist can manifest all his creative energy, while questioning the expressive power of free speech. Read More Artist Bio Richard Prince American • 1947 While some artists are known for a signature style, Richard Prince is most closely associated with his subject matter: for instance, Cowboys, his series of the Marlboro man magnified between 1980 and 1994; Nurses, sinister yet seductive, all copies from pulp novel covers; joke text paintings, simple block lettering of his own or appropriated jokes. Often labelled an artist of the Pictures Generation alongside Cindy Sherman and Robert Longo Prince has been said to be the contemporary artist who most understands the depth and influence of mass media over life in the 20th and 21st centuries. In whichever medium Prince chooses to work, he stays within the realm of appropriation. Of course Prince is not met without controversy, and he has been on the losing end of several lawsuits involving copyright infringement. His "Instagram" series — unedited reproductions of content posted by models, influencers and celebrities on their personal feeds — sold for upwards of $100,000 at primary market, making for a memorable moment at Frieze Week New York in 2015. View More Works