Better Late Than Never; My Essay on Richard Prince
The work of Richard Prince is some of the most controversial in the art world. He was trained as a painter and grew up in the 1950’s in the United States controlled area of the Panama Canal and was said to be greatly influenced by Jackson Pollock at the time. You can definitely see Pollock’s abstract expressionalist influences on Prince’s work. After he traveled museums in Europe he attended college in Maine. In the late 70’s Prince moved to New York City to include himself in the art scene. Most consider his NYC years to be somewhat of a failure in his career. He put on an exhibition of “re-photography� which people saw as noting more than stealing of other people’s work. It’s interesting too that Warhol was able to become so popular from seemingly doing the exact same idea of redistribution of popular culture. Prince was trying to point out it’s dominance in our lives. This work and others by Prince really weren’t recognized till much later in his career when he was able to have a touring gallery of his images in 2005.
I can see his work really close to that of Chris Ofili. Not in the sense of style, but in message and process. They are both extremely influenced and criticized of ripping of other artists. Chris Ofili for copying the composition of historic paintings and Prince for directly copying advertisements of the 1970’s. Their intent however was not to copy and claim the work as their own, but to make people reconsider the art with their voice attached to it and give it different meaning.
I’d probably tell a friend about this artist. I would talk more about his painting then his photographic work. I’m not a big fan of his re-photography I see it as a lack of creative effort. He might as well have written a paper about criticizing the images rather than claiming them as his own art and taking so much grief for it. I do really enjoy his paintings and would tell that friend to check them out. I especially enjoy his nurses set on his webpage. For images please go to his webpage (http://www.richardprinceart.com/) due to copyright I was unable to place them on this page.