America Through the Eyes of Corporate Advertising Through the Eyes of Richard Prince

If you copied something from a magazine, could you use it as your own work? Your professor would call it plagiarism, but Richard Prince might disagree.

As an “appropriation artist,” much of Prince’s work involves re-using images or words from popular culture, such as re-photographing Marlboro ads or re-printing common jokes. And although it may seem easy to question the artistic value of Prince’s appropriation, the Guggenheim’s exhibit won’t let you.

Running until January 9, this detailed overview of Prince’s work focuses on his appropriation art from the 1970s onward, when he began re-photographing advertisements. Born in 1949, the American artist grew up in the rebellious ’60s, leading to the “cultural provocation” present in so much of his artwork. Prince’s use of appropriation challenges notions of originality and authorship, causing considerable debate in the art world.

The first photographs that the viewer sees upon entering the show not only introduce his techniques of appropriation, but also show Prince’s fascination with that which is distinctly American. “Untitled (living rooms)” consists of four furniture advertisements that Prince re-photographed from The New York Times Magazine in 1977. In addition to provoking copyright issues, placing these photographs adjacent to one another gives them a new context, the picture-perfect couch-centered living room desired by every American. As the visitor walks up the Guggenheim’s spiral, viewing Prince’s work chronologically, Prince’s obsession with America’s mass-cultural consciousness begins to emerge.

After viewing Prince’s famous series of “Cowboys” from the early 1980s, which replicate the symbol of American manhood as portrayed in Marlboro ads, the visitor sees his 1990s series of “Girlfriends.” While the cowboy may now be an obsolete symbol of the American man’s dream of adventure and possession, Prince presents the motorcycle as a contemporary parallel. Only instead of simply re-photographing motorcycle ads, Prince’s “Girlfriends” replicates amateur snapshots of half-nude biker chicks posing seductively, images submitted to biker magazines by proud boyfriends. These photographs add another layer to the male fantasy of possession: in addition to owning the shiny motorcycles, the men see their girlfriends as prized possessions. Ironically titled “Live Free or Die,” Prince not only eternalizes these images by re-photographing them as art, but also encourages the viewer to think about what they say about American culture.

In another series, “Publicities” from the late 1980s, Prince explores America’s fascination with celebrity by re-photographing publicity photographs of porn-stars, musicians, Hollywood stars and other paparazzi fodder. Again, Prince is simultaneously embracing and criticizing this aspect of American mass culture by re-photographing the incessantly photographed and presenting it as artwork.

Perhaps nowhere is this theme more pointed than in the photograph of child-actress Brooke Shields in a seductive pose, originally captured by photographer Gary Gross with the consent of Shields’ mother. Ten years later, Shields filed a lawsuit against Gross. As if re-photographing this controversial image is not enough, Prince’s choice of titling it “Spiritual America” gives clear insight into his ideas. The Guggenheim’s exhibit takes its name from this artwork, a “powerful example of conflicting impulses that characterize American culture: a deeply ingrained Puritan ethos countered by a desperate and often degrading desire for recognition.” It is a phenomenon that clearly fascinates Prince.

For the critic of appropriation art, the exhibit presents some of Prince’s original photographs from his series “Untitled (upstate)” from the late 1990s. These photos capture lone signs of an abandoned culture. One particularly poignant image shows a rusting basketball hoop emerging from a deserted overgrown court in the middle of nowhere.

The top floors of the Guggenheim are filled with examples of Prince’s “Hand-stenciled Jokes” from the late 1990s. Evoking minimalist painting, Prince reprints the jokes on massive blank canvases, sometimes using a background of checks or photographs. While this is a very different and refreshing act of appropriation, the sheer number of these paintings gets overwhelming.

Walking through the Guggenheim, the visitor is sure to hear familiar expressions of “so this is art?” more than once. Reading the exhibit’s information placards or picking up an audio-guide will give the necessary background information to appreciate Prince’s work. While Prince’s art may not be the easiest to admire, its bound to lead to more interesting debate than the usual canonn far.