London, The Serpentine Gallery


The Daily Telegraph in the UK has called him the coolest artist alive; The Guardian has said his art is not about contemplation. Certainly, Richard Prince's work is clever, witty and quickly digested. But the ideas behind it are focused and important.

A disciple of Warhol, Prince became known for his appropriation art — photographing other photographs, usually from magazine adverts, then enlarging and exhibiting them in galleries – in the late 1970s. One of his Marlboro pictures sold at Christie's in 2005 for $1.2 million, becoming the most expensive photograph sold at auction. (The record has since been broken by Andreas Gursky.) It was a photograph of a Marlboro cigarette packet showing a cowboy galloping across the American Wild West, minus the advertising copy and health warning, detaching the original image from its former context.

This exhibition features many of Prince's best-known works, from his Marlboro and girlfriends pictures (appropriated from biker magazines) to his nurses and joke paintings. Also on display are two of his muscle cars, one of which is in "Vitamin C", as he describes it, the other has a topless woman painted onto it. His work is worth millions yet his inspiration comes from trailer trash and lower-middle class America.

June 26 through September 7, 2008
The Serpentine Gallery
Kensington Gardens
London W2 3XA
T.44 (0)20 7402 6075