I live in LA. Or close enough. I live on CalArts campus, 30 miles north of LA. I am a Brit abroad. My first Thanksgiving in this country, I got invited along to a vegetarian dinner complete with salmon and tofurkey. Least said about the latter, the better. But said dinner was in New York. I fought the ridiculous queues, added security measures and general mayhem that is travel on Thanksgiving for a 5 day break from school (most welcome, learning is hard! I haven't done it in so long!). My host generously gave me some time and space to chill out whilst giving me the opportunity to pound the NY pavements in search of clothing bargains and as much art as I could take – he's an artist – but I can take a lot of art – I out arted him! The day before I left we visited the shows at the Guggenheim, the new photo acquisitions at MOMA, Kara Walker and Danny Lyon at the Whitney and Robert Capa at the International Center of Photography. I really liked a lot of what I saw, in particular the Kara Walker exhibition was a amazing. Walker punches, hard. I think her work is very interesting, because in the material she works with, the punch is justified, useful even, necessary. And I like the time period she has chosen to explore – pre-Civil War – pre-segregation, tracing the roots of the jazz style, the look, design and feel. There's a lot I can say about the work, but I need to think more about it too, it takes some thinking about. But Google her, the work is truly amazing.
However, Richard Prince is who I really got my head around. I half remember seeing a very, large photo of a cowboy on a horse, rearing up, on a restaurant wall, somewhere amongst the galleries in the West End. And I also half remember his joke paintings. I never quite squared the 2 projects in my head or figured out if they were the same person or how they fitted together. Then, recently, we discussed his work in class. His chauvinistic tendencies were apparent to me, but little else. My expectations were pretty low before I saw the show, although I heard from other people that it was really interesting. Seeing the work, I got it. The one liners in the painting repeat, and bleed into one another, and seeing them en mass, a bad comic's gag routine becomes apparent. His promo photos, that he signed himself as if they were signed by the celebrity, alongside his piece, 'Spiritual America' – a highly provocative photograph of a prepubescent Brooke Shields, question the legitimacy of representation and in my mind, connected the dots between Prince, Ricky Gervais and Chris Morris. I have to concede Prince's mastery of his material. He clusters his photographs into 'Gangs', rotates them, adds comic strip images on top of them and adds text to them in a style that makes it look easy. From my own practice, I know that stuff is hard! He resolves his work in really smart ways. He makes it look effortless!
