The art of Richard Prince is filled with humor and pretension, applying a sharp eye to the disjointed fragments of American culture. Based on appropriated images from mass culture such as book covers, magazine back pages and advertisements, he reframes these bits of everyday ephemera into diverse mediums such as photography, paintings and sculptures. From his photographic series such as Cowboys from 1980 and the controversial image of Brooke Shields in the 1983 Spiritual America, to canvases such as White Paintings from the 1990s, and Nurses from 2002, the exhibit provides a comprehensive overview of his work.
Guggenheim's Chief Curator, Nancy Spector organizes the exhibition, not by chronology or medium, but by interspersing the different series – a brilliant curatorial interpretation of Prince's fragmented approach to a very fragmented visual culture. Visitors to the exhibit, therefore, are left to their own defenses to experience Prince's vision, at the same time a critique of and delight in American mass culture.