Provenance
Gladstone Gallery, New York; Private Collection
Catalogue Essay
“I have never thought of making anything new. I make it again. I am very much against trying to make anything new in a modernist approach. I think you can do only something for yourself”
Richard Prince

Richard Prince has explored, examined and experimented with the world of appropriation through the various channels of photography, painting, sculpture, writing and graphic design. He is among the most highly regarded and influential artists working today who has paved the way for artists such as Jeff Koons, Sherrie Levine and Barbara Kruger. Prince started his career working for TIME/LIFE in the late 1970s, and it is his exposure to mass media, advertising and entertainment images that led to his first artworks, in 1977. For example, he re-photographed pictures of living rooms that appeared in the New York Times magazine: “Instead of tearing them out of the magazine and collaging them onto another surface it occurred to me if I took my camera and ‘shot’ them, sent off the chrome to a commercial lab and blew the negative up to make a real photograph, that it would change the way they originally came out” (the artist in an interview with Hans Ulrich Obrist and Julia Peyton-Jones in K. Rattee, et al., eds., Richard Prince: America Goes To War ... Swimming In The Afternoon…, London: Serpentine Gallery, 2008).

Prince began making his Joke Paintings in 1985. The earliest examples were solely text-based works on paper; later, he silk-screened the text onto monochrome canvases, such as in Another Opinion, 1989. The jokes themselves are banal, well-worn bad jokes abstracted from their original context, such as cartoons. The irony and humour have all but disappeared in the process of presenting them in the new context of painterly and conceptual art:

“Some jokes are hand-written, others are silk-screened; the letters follow each other on a straight line or on a wavy line, are centered or placed at the bottom of the image, like captions, repeated, superimposed…Sometimes, the jokes are looped, as though they were told one after the other, as in stand-up comedy, and linked to one another with a simple ‘one more’, ’another one’ or ’okay’. At other times, a malfunction sees to occur, like a broken record, and the same joke is repeated twice on the same painting. In general, the same jokes are repeated from new series to the next on all possible supports.” (V. Pécoil, Richard Prince: Canaries in the Coal Mine, Oslo: Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, 2007, p. 128).

The present work, My Life as a Weapon (2007) consists of a collage of soft-porn photographs depicting women in seductive poses and various states of undress. The initial crudeness is obscured by flecks and blocks of blue, pink and yellow acrylic paint. The text is laid boldly on top of this chaotic blanket of colour and imagery; the large utilitarian lettering brings a rather Spartan calm to the composition. The presentation of the text, in block capitals and repeated three times, removes any semblance of the spontaneity of the joke. Like most of Prince’s joke paintings, the text in My Life as a Weapon draws on the traditional joke subjects such as family, lovers and spouses.

Until the early 20th century, painting had predominately been concerned with creating forms and figures. Then, Duchamp and, later on, Warhol, brought into being the concept of the ready-made and appropriation. Prince’s work occupies both realms, recontextualising or manipulating the ready-made into more complex narrative structures, resulting in his rich and highly celebrated body of work.

“The painted, as against the photographic, world of Richard Prince is neither preconceived nor harmonious, linear, stable or continuous. Instead, it is a place of discrepancy and displacement, of contradictions and misunderstandings (much like reality in general). We could even speak of the absurdity of these works, the zone where irreconcilable elements on the pictorial surface initiate the signification. Herein, the spectator is confronted by a confusing and enigmatic frame of reference. Indeed, Princes figurative paintings are about reconstructing reality, or fabricating parallel realities.” (Introduction to the exhibition Richard Prince: Canaries in the Coal Mine at the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo, 20 January–29 April 2007)
Artist Biography
Richard Prince
American • 1947
For more than three decades, Prince's universally celebrated practice has pursued the subversive strategy of appropriating commonplace imagery and themes – such as photographs of quintessential Western cowboys and "biker chicks," the front covers of nurse romance novellas, and jokes and cartoons – to deconstruct singular notions of authorship, authenticity and identity.
Starting his career as a member of the Pictures Generation in the 1970s alongside such contemporaries as Cindy Sherman, Robert Longo and Sherrie Levine, Prince is widely acknowledged as having expanded the accepted parameters of art-making with his so-called "re-photography" technique – a revolutionary appropriation strategy of photographing pre-existing images from magazine ads and presenting them as his own. Prince's practice of appropriating familiar subject matter exposes the inner mechanics of desire and power pervading the media and our cultural consciousness at large, particularly as they relate to identity and gender constructs.
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Ο◆16

Richard Prince

My Life as a Weapon

2007
Acrylic and collage on canvas.
203.2 × 303.5 cm (80 × 119 1/2 in).
Signed and dated ‘R Prince 2007’ on the reverse.

Estimate
£500,000 - 700,000 ‡

Sold for £541,250

Contemporary Art Evening Sale

12 October 2011
London

1
Walead Beshty
20-inch Copper (FedEx® Large Kraft Box© 2005 FEDEX 330508) International Priority, Los Angeles–London trk#8685 8772 8040, date October 2–6, 2009. International Priority London–New York trk#863822956489, date November 18–20, 2009, International Priority New York–London trk#7952 0098 1790, date September 19–21, 2011
Estimate £20,000 - 30,000 ‡♠
Sold for £46,850
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2
Jacob Kassay
Untitled
Estimate £50,000 - 70,000
Sold for £163,250
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3
Maurizio Cattelan
Tié
Estimate £50,000 - 70,000 ♠
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4
Tauba Auerbach
CMY 5
Estimate £15,000 - 20,000 ‡
Sold for £49,250
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5
Aaron Young
Untitled
Estimate £60,000 - 80,000
Sold for £87,650
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6
Steven Parrino
Creeping Eye
Estimate £300,000 - 500,000
Sold for £361,250
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7
This lot is no longer available.
8
Cecily Brown
The Torment of St. Anthony
Estimate £250,000 - 350,000 ‡♠
Sold for £265,250
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9
Damien Hirst
Observation – The Crown of Justice
Estimate £700,000 - 1,000,000 ‡♠
Sold for £780,450
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10
Jeff Koons
Seal Walrus Trashcans
Estimate £2,000,000 - 3,000,000 ‡
Sold for £2,113,250
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11
Lucio Fontana
Concetto spaziale
Estimate £250,000 - 350,000 ‡
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12
Damien Hirst
5-Aminouracil
Estimate £600,000 - 800,000 ‡♠
Sold for £690,850
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13
Maurizio Cattelan
Turisti
Estimate £250,000 - 350,000 ♠
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14
George Condo
Cave Painting
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15
Cecily Brown
Park
Estimate £400,000 - 600,000 ‡♠
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16
Richard Prince
My Life as a Weapon
Estimate £500,000 - 700,000 ‡
Sold for £541,250
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17
Anselm Kiefer
Die Argonauten
Estimate £500,000 - 700,000 ♠
Sold for £601,250
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18
Anselm Kiefer
Sternenfall
Estimate £90,000 - 120,000 ‡♠
Sold for £109,250
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19
Paula Rego
The Servant
Estimate £500,000 - 700,000 ♠
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20
George Condo
Two works: (i) The Departure, 2004; (ii) The Arrival, 2004
Estimate £300,000 - 400,000 ‡
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21
Thomas Schütte
United Enemy
Estimate £300,000 - 500,000 ♠
Sold for £481,250
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22
Andreas Gursky
Copan
Estimate £180,000 - 250,000 ‡♠
Sold for £217,250
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23
Hiroshi Sugimoto
Ligurian Sea, Frumura
Estimate £200,000 - 300,000 ‡
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24
Ed Ruscha
Judy
Estimate £180,000 - 220,000 ‡
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25
Cindy Sherman
Untitled #122
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26
Sol LeWitt
5 Cubes Half-Off
Estimate £120,000 - 180,000
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27
Richard Serra
Tracks #2
Estimate £100,000 - 150,000 ‡
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28
Robert Motherwell
Frontier No. 12
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29
Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol
Thin Lips
Estimate £700,000 - 1,000,000 ‡
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30
Gilbert & George
Heart
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31
Johannes Kahrs
Eifer-Sucht (Jealousy)
Estimate £120,000 - 180,000 ‡♠
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32
Barnaby Furnas
Flood (Red Sea)
Estimate £150,000 - 250,000 †
Sold for £169,250
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33
Marc Quinn
Red Lantern Cove
Estimate £85,000 - 120,000 ‡♠
Sold for £91,250
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34
Tom Friedman
Untitled (T.V. Sprinkles)
Estimate £60,000 - 80,000 Ω
Sold for £73,250
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35
Nicolas Pol
Specialist of Peace
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36
Tim Noble and Sue Webster
Toxic Schizophrenia
Estimate £180,000 - 250,000 Ω♠
Sold for £229,250
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Contemporary Art Evening Sale

12 October 2011 London

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Provenance

Catalogue Essay

Artist Biography

Richard Prince

Ο◆16

Richard Prince

My Life as a Weapon

Contemporary Art Evening Sale

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12 October 2011
London