Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York Private Collection, Europe Christie's, New York, 14 November 2001, lot 309 Acquired at the above sale by the present owner
Exhibited
New York, Whitney Museum of American Art; Dusseldorf, Kunstverein; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Rotterdam, Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Richard Prince, 1 May 1992–28 November 1993, p. 189 (another example exhibited)
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.
Ektacolor print mounted to foamcore 68.5 x 101.6 cm (26 7/8 x 40 in.) Executed in 1986, this work is number 1 from an edition of 2 and is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist.
