Richard Prince and I

Back in the day – I exhibited  work on paper by Richard Prince. Today, he renounces these works although at the time they were exhibited and sold to museum and corporate collections.  His renunciation raises all kinds of questions regarding originality, attribution,  and ultimately value in the art world.

Firstly, let me acknowledge that I am probably the biggest duh-brain art dealer of the late 20^th Century. In 1975, I opened Kathryn Markel Fine Arts, my tiny gallery on 57^th Street and one of the first artists I exhibited was the brilliant,  seminal, (and now very rich) art world phenome, Richard Prince.  I loved the work he was making at the time. His medium was paper and he combined many techniques – etching , collage, drawing, whiteout, photos. Often, light washes of gray aquatint covered  parts of typed words that were in turn covered with a translucent medium that functioned like whiteout.  These hidden messages  evoked a nostalgia for the corporate.  The etchings were also amazing – an elegant line built images and words that created a kind of a pop poetry. The works were beautifully crafted peons to contemporary life.   I exhibited his work three times first in November 1975, and sold a number of pieces to various institutions – among them The Brooklyn Museum and  The Walker Museum in Minneapolis.

As I recall, and we’re talking many years ago, Richard and I had a cordial, professional relationship. We were both just starting out and I think he was pleased that I had sold a number of pieces to good collections. He could also count on me to help out when he occasionally needed some extra money. If I happened to have some extra money – which was rare at the time – I was happy to purchase pieces directly. The work was beautiful and I loved it.

Then, in 1980 or thereabouts, Richard stopped making beautiful art. When I made a studio visit, he showed me these rephotographed photographs. I could see how he was deconstructing a ubiquitous media, trying to reproduce its banalities and conventions – but I hated it. I remember distinctly what was perhaps our last conversation. When I saw the new work, I said, “Where is the hand, Richard? I miss the hand!” He said, ” I’m not going to use the hand anymore. It’s too easy” He quietly explained to stupid me, that beautiful  mark making was too facile. I guess it’s hard to be a tough intellectual artist if you’re also a beautiful painter.

So there I was – at the birth of picture art – art as image – image as strategy, image as the visualization of ideas – images deconstructing the media, the genders, the politics, images hugely intellectually important in ways I’ll never comprehend – and still for me -sadly- really, really boring. We parted ways. I didn’t want to work with art that was purely intellectual. I wanted then and still want now, art that speaks to my senses as well as my mind.

(Now all you folks in the art world – stop and think about exactly what I did there. Is this the major art world stupid moment of the last century or what? )

The Fugitive Artist

“The Fugitive Artist” curated by Michael  Lobel at the Neuberger Museum

So after some 30 years, the art historian – detective Michael Lobel comes calling.  He’s fascinated with the history of Picture Art and trying to find out where it came from.  It’s been so influential in the art world for the last 30 years, so – naturally – he’s researching Richard’s early work. He’s making me remember and relive those early days when beautiful was not a bad word. Michael Lobel wanted to make an exhibition of early Richard Prince.

But there’s a big problem. Richard Prince hates Early Richard Prince. Remember, he hates his uncanny ability to make beautiful marks. I understand that. And for the record, the road of intellectual photo images that  he  took was so much more influential and eventually lucrative than the road of the hand-made that I would have had him take. He did the brilliant strategic thing and I was and am – an idiot. I can accept that.

But the art by Richard Prince I exhibited in the 70’s  was very funny, provocative and I cannot tell a lie – beautiful. I sold a number of pieces to museums and collectors. I quickly paid him when I sold something and he took the money, cashed the checks and thanked me. Now 30 years later,  he says it was all a mistake. The work I sold was not really that of the real Richard Prince.

And because Richard repudiated all of the art in this exhibition,  – some 50 pieces he made from 1975,76,77, he refused to cooperate with Michael and the  Neuberger Museum in putting together this exhibition. He called in a lawyer, and refused to allow the pieces in the exhibition to be reproduced in the catalog.  Michael brilliantly worked his way around this by having empty squares become placeholders for the works he was describing.  The exhibition was called “The Fugitive Artist” , and the catalog visually expressed that idea.  Roberta Smith’s review of the exhibition at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/09/arts/design/09prin.html

So Prince decided that he doesn’t like the more beautifully made, less cerebral art of his early career.  He seems to want to recreate his history and needs to future art historians to see him as the cynical  jokster who appears fully formed on the art scene, without history, mistakes,  previous life, or previous art.