He’s appropriated images of American icons ranging from the Malboro man to Brooke Shields – and even once published The Catcher in the Rye with his name on the jacket instead of JD Salinger’s.
But 40 years into his career, Richard Prince’s practice of taking images from other sources without permission, changing them minimally (if at all), presenting them as his own work and selling them with a hefty price tag is still proving controversial.
The artist’s most recent works are screenshots from Instagram, blown up and jet-printed on six-foot canvas, the only other changes to the images being cryptic remarks by Prince added to the comment threads.
— Alex Needham (@alexneedham74) May 13, 2015Richard Prince at Frieze New York pic.twitter.com/VggrWbttkt
When Prince first presented the works at the Gagosian Gallery in New York last September, New York magazine’s art critic Jerry Saltz described them as “genius trolling”, though others were less enthusiastic.
At the Frieze art fair this month, Prince presented a new set of Instagram pictures mainly taken from the feed belonging to SuicideGirls, a community of models and burlesque performers with a punk rock aesthetic.
One of the women in the photographs, Doe Deere, posted on Instagram that she had been told the picture of her had been sold for $90,000.