Richard Prince at Sadie Coles. I went to visit on the 7th March, after my the Slade interview, intending to see the Sarah Lucas room on the first floor, but instead I found myself absolutely loving these collage pieces. The paintings that were also on show were brilliant, due to the technique of using a printed canvas then painting over the top, but the sheer offensive nature of these photographic pieces really caught my eye.
There’s something very deliberately vulgar about them, and it’s this deliberation that makes them powerful. There’s no pussyfooting around, for me there’s almost a satirical message in these works. He censors and obscures each of his subjects (sometimes sloppily, which I love), using titles of cult albums and films. I was curious as to why he used these particular titles. It’s amazing to me that pieces are so in your face have these more subtle undertones to them, what exactly is he trying to say with this mash of pop-culture and cult followings?
Perhaps he’s saying that everything’s a commodity, and that in itself can be rather crass and vulgar. The body, sex, is just as saleable as an album on the shelf of a music shop. Or maybe he’s saying that these industries all have seedy foundations underlying them, that they’re held up by the pornographic, the sleazy? We only see the finished product, the shiny shallow image, but we are not told about the “quite hideous” things that undermine and yet support it.
Are we all voyeurs in the modern age? What makes something right, and acceptable? We separate ourselves from reality by losing ourselves in music and film. Exploitation and pornography can be given to us under the guise of an entertainment product.
romaincrisis
snowghoul
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