Art Client

Guggenheim Art Exhibit Review

The words ironically ironic immediately spring to mind when one walks into Richard
Princes exhibit at the Guggenheim subtitled Spiritual America. One expects to see
churches and priests and if their lucky the pious evangelical until disappointment hits.
Here on the first floor lays a magnificent sculpture of the chassis of a 1969 Charger
entitled American Prayer, it is a classic hot rod, stripped and hoisted on a block.
Disappointment quickly evaporates as intrigue takes its place. The car appears as if stuck
in a perpetual state, ready to be painted and ascribed a color. One cant help but wonder
why Prince chooses this name which powerfully contrasts with the content of the exhibit.
The paradoxically beautiful, seamless 30-year survey of his work at the Guggenheim
Museum catches many of our countrys discontents and throws them back to us. The
central message of this array of about 160 photographs, drawings, paintings and
sculptures, most of which incorporate images or objects cropped from popular culture is
in touch with the same shamed, shameless side of America that gave us tell-too-much talk
shows, reality TV and the current obsession with celebrity. Practically every last
American could find something familiar, if usually a bit unsettling, in his work.
As one explores further into the exhibit the first photographs encountered do indeed
look like ads, only slightly larger and more enticing. He photographs modern living
rooms from magazines and the New York Times as a carefully constructed atmosphere of
class and privilege. He collects image after image of babes and topless bikers. He
rephotographs the controversial shot of Brooke Shield as teen idol, the work that lends its
name to the retrospective. He starts the famous series that everyone remembers, the
Marlborough man. Prince doesnt stop here. It seems that Mr. Prince has never met a
piece of contemporary American he couldnt use. Customized checks with images of
SpongeBob SquarePants? He pastes them to canvas and paints on them. Mail-order
fiberglass hoods for muscle cars? He hangs them on the wall. Planters made of sliced and
splayed truck tires? He does not have to ask where the chain of appropriations ends
between himself, present, advertising, Pop Art, and Dadaism (seemingly) because the

chain keeps circling back. Prince, his work seems to insist, never lets one forget his place
in art and in his spiritual Americabut does he mean it, and does he really mean it
ironically?
His paintings have become similarly free, or perhaps traditional, as evinced by his
pulp-fiction-cover Nurse series. He uses medical romance novels ranging from1950
1960. The paintings portray something violent in nature even death. The ugly mix of
yellows and reds adds to the nasty meaning of the painting. No one would want to hang a
painting such as that among their collection. One can see he runs through the stereotypes
of female sexuality in his nurses, as they were portrayed as sexually active during the
time when their paperback novels were finding style.
Early in the show an especially imposing joke painting offers a summation of his
ambition; I Know a Guy (2000). In an overwhelming rush, the words inject a twitching
dose of stand-up conversation: I knew a guy who was so rich he could ski uphill.
Another one, I told my mother-in-law my house is your house. Last week she sold it.
Another one ... The clincher here is the words another one, which has echoes in
subsequent joke paintings: Again. or One more. It turns these text paintings into
portraits of the artist at work, sweating it out, honing his material and timing, cheering
himself on to come up with another one and then another one until he gets our full
attention, cracks us up (which he most certainly does) , in stand-up comedy; another
aspect of American pop culture.
This in a nutshell might be the story of Mr. Princes career, one of nonstop
production, of collecting, editing and honing, of sifting and shifting styles and techniques,
and getting better all the time. But one cant help but go back to the haunting name of
spiritual America. Why spiritual America? His collection can probably make the
collection of others look downright spiritual by comparison. His America is more
sexualized, and degraded than normally imagined. Prince brings in to question spirituality
itself. It shows the conflicting impulses of a culture with a so called deeply rooted puritan
ideal. To Prince Spirituality is in the eye of the beholder. It is something man made rooted
deep within our values as a society. In more ways than one Prince gets the last word. At
the Guggenheim, moreover, he finds a whole new audience, and from the size of his
collection he has been waiting for it all his life.