RICHARD PRINCE (b. 1949) Unititled (A Man Walks

Provenance
Galerie Monika Sprüth, Cologne

Essay
"Prince borrows witticisms and cartoons which, usually the work of authors and cartoonists with cult status, ventilate in cultivated magazines acerbic criticism of things they actually hold up as values, and uses them as worn-out, anonymous, corny jokes for countless paintings that cunningly appropriate the history of painting since the 1950's. In his permutative reorganization of image and language contents, Prince turns the 'joke' into the painter's signature in the authentic medium of art, thus signifying painting itself as a paradoxical joke." B. Ruf, ed., Richard Prince: Paintings, Photographs, Ostfildern-Ruit 2002, p. 5)