Selected Shorts: Richard Prince

Foremost contemporary artist Richard Prince selects the stories for this evening of literature and art, which began at Symphony Space and concluded across the park with a private viewing of the Guggenheim’s Richard Prince: Spiritual America exhibition. Find out which works inspire the ardent bibliophile whose multimedia “appropriations” adopt the language of the Marlboro Man, muscle cars, biker chicks, off-color jokes and pulp fiction. Co-presented with The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

Performance playlist:

Adventures in Auto-eroticism
by Neal Cassady
read by Ted Marcoux

Raft in Water, Floating
by A.M. Homes
read by Hope Davis

Ambush
by Tim O'Brien
read by John Shea

John Wayne: A Love Song
by Joan Didion
read by Kathleen Chalfant

Born in 1949 in the Panama Canal Zone, Richard Prince grew up in a Boston suburb. In 1973 he moved to New York, where he immersed himself in the downtown music and art scenes. While working in the tear-sheet department of Time Life, he began to rephotograph the discarded advertising pages, carefully cropping out all copy until only formulaic images of consumer aspiration remained: interior decor, luxury goods, product logos and fashion models. Drawing inspiration from the mainstream mass media as well as various American subcultures, Prince subsequently focused his camera on a series of stock figures so hopelessly clichéd that they could be described by one–word archetypes: Cowboys, Girlfriends and Entertainers. These appropriated photographs were displayed individually, in serial groupings, or combined within a single sheet in a format that the artist refers to as a Gang. Simultaneously, he began to hand copy cartoons and old jokes from the annals of Borscht Belt humor, pairing the images with unrelated jokes, or spelling out the text of the gag line on otherwise empty, monochrome backgrounds.

As his career has progressed, Prince has brought an increasingly expressionistic sensibility to bear on his appropriated imagery and texts, producing resolutely painterly canvases. Although still present, the jokes are now muted by gestural fields of layered paint and, in some cases, are part of compositions comprising grids of collaged bank checks, stock photography, or vintage pornography. Prince’s Hood sculptures, painted muscle-car hoods that initially sported a slick, commercial finish, now function as supports for expressionistic hand painting. In 2002 the artist initiated Nurses, a series of canvases derived from the pulpy cover designs of medical romance novels, rendered in dripping, lurid colors save for the figures’ white uniforms and surgical masks. His most recent body of work, a series of interactions with the iconography of Abstract Expressionist painter Willem de Kooning, has extended this register of painterly figuration.

In recent years, Prince has drawn inspiration from the small-town milieu of his current base in upstate New York, which he has documented in a series of original photographs, Untitled (upstate). Environmental installations, such as the Spiritual America Gallery in downtown Manhattan (1983–84), the First House (1993) in Los Angeles, and the Second House (2001–2007) in Rensselaerville, New York, have long formed a key aspect of Prince’s practice, and a private library and fully operational industrial “body shop” have recently been added to his network of projects upstate.

Neal Cassady (1926-1968) was a friend of the founders of the Beat movement, specifically Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. He appeared as a main character in many books, from On the Road and The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac to The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe. A frequent correspondent with Kerouac, Cassady’s free-flowing writing style inspired the young Kerouac to experiment with a new writing style, which he called ‘spontaneous prose.’ Despite his appearance in many literary works of his time, Cassady did not publish any books during his lifetime. His unfinished autobiography and assorted letters were published as The First Third after his death.

Kathleen Chalfant’s Broadway credits include Angels in America (Tony and Drama Desk Award nominations), Racing Demon, Dance With Me and M. Butterfly. Her Off Broadway work includes The Last Letter, Talking Heads, Wit (Drama Desk, Obie, Lucille Lortel, and Outer Critics Circle Awards), Nine Armenians (Drama Desk nomination) and Henry V (Callaway Award). She was awarded the 1996 Obie Award for Sustained Excellence, and the Drama League and Sidney Kingsley Awards for her body of work. Her films include Kinsey, Bob Roberts and the forthcoming films First Born and The Last New Yorker. Her television work includes recurring roles on The Book of Daniel and The Guardian.

Hope Davis has appeared in films including Infamous, Proof, About Schmidt, American Splendor, The Secret Lives of Dentists, Mumford, The Daytrippers, Next Stop Wonderland, The Matador and The Hoax. Her theatre credits include Ivanov, Two Shakespearean Actors, Spinning Into Butter, Food Chain and Measure for Measure.

Joan Didion’s most recent book, the memoir The Year of Magical Thinking, won the National Book Award for Nonfiction, was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award, and was adapted into a play starring Vanessa Redgrave. Her other books include the essay collections Slouching Towards Bethlehem, The White Album and After Henry; and the works of fiction Play it As It Lays, A Book of Common Prayer, Democracy and The Last Thing He Wanted.

A.M. Homes’ most recent book is the memoir The Mistress’s Daughter. She is also the author of two short story collections and five novels, including Music for Torching, This Book Will Save Your Life and The Safety of Objects. Her work has been translated into 18 languages and appears frequently in Artforum, Harper’s, Granta, McSweeney’s, The New Yorker, The New York Times and Zoetrope. She is a Contributing Editor to Vanity Fair, Bomb and Blind Spot, and recipient of awards including the Guggenheim, NEA and NYFA Fellowships.

Ted Marcoux’s stage credits include A Few Good Men on Broadway, and Off Broadway performances in The Bells and Earth and Sky. He has appeared in such movies as Dark Blue, Camp Stories and Ghost in the Machine. He has appeared on television in Thrill, Visions of Terror, Deadly Relations, The Practice, NYPD Blue, Law & Order, Boston Public, 24 and Six Feet Under.

Tim O’Brien is the author of eight books, including the National Book Award-winning novel Going After Cacciato. The Things They Carried was a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award; in 2005, the book was named by The New York Times as one of the best books in the last quarter century. O’Brien’s other works include In the Lake of the Woods, named the best novel of 1994 by Time magazine; If I Die in a Combat Zone; Northern Lights; Tomcat in Love; and July, July. O’Brien holds the Roy F. and Joann Cole Mitte Endowed Chair in Creative Writing at Texas State University.

John Shea’s theatre work includes Yentl, for which he received a Theatre World Award; End of the World; How I Learned to Drive; The Director; and The Normal Heart in London’s West End. His films include Windy City, Stealing Home, Lune de Miel (France), Unsettled Land (Israel), Hussy (England) and the Academy Award-winning Missing. His television credits include Lois and Clark (as Lex Luthor); Kennedy, which earned him a BAFTA Award; Baby M, for which he received an Emmy Award; and The Dining Room for PBS’s Great Performances series. He was nominated for an Audie for his work in audio books. He appears on screen in The Insurgents; on TV in Gossip Girl; and has written the screenplay for Grey Lady, a thriller he directed.