Richard Prince

These things looked like something that should be painted.
—Richard Prince

Gagosian Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new paintings and related newsprint collages by Richard Prince.

Prince first attracted attention in the early 1980s with images re-photographed from magazine ads, through which he defined for himself the concepts of authorship, ownership, and aura. Applying his understanding of the complex transactions of representation to the making of art, he has evolved a unique signature filled with echoes of other signatures yet that is unquestionably his own.

Begun in 2004 at the juncture of the Nurse and De Kooning paintings and evolving through the Canal Zone and After Dark series, the Tiffany paintings reflect Prince's continuing attentiveness to the recurring patterns and suggestive potential of advertising, honed by years of perusing newspapers and magazines. These almost abstract, monochrome paintings treat the plain yet distinctive ads that New York's most famous jewelry brand has run daily for many years in the upper right hand corner of the same page of The New York Times, while echoing associations with another classic, Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's, whose object of desire Holly Golightly lures admirers only to elude them later.