RICHARD PRINCE | Portrait of Cindy Sherman

Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York
Regen Projects, Los Angeles
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2004

Los Angeles, Regen Projects, Richard Prince: Women, February - March 2004, n.p., illustrated in colour

Colour: The colour in the catalogue illustration is fairly accurate, although the overall tonality is deeper and richer in the original. Condition: This work is in very good condition. The print is attached verso to a mount-board and is window-mounted. The edges of the print are not visible when framed.
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The result of a collaboration between two of the most profoundly influential members of the Pictures Generation, Richard Prince and Cindy Sherman, this unique portrait from 1980 illustrates many of the two artists’ most essential concerns. Where Sherman investigates stereotypical images of femininity, recreating subjects both imagined and real in distorted self-portraits to explore ideas of identity and masquerade, Prince, on the other hand, has appropriated found imagery to question the nature of authenticity and examine the popular vocabulary of masculinity. In the present work, both artists’ signature working styles are perfectly synthesized in a dexterous and provocative portrait. Narrating this collaboration, in which Sherman and Prince photographed each other dressed in matching suits and red wigs for a set of twin portraits, the present work critically interrogates the nature of photography. The medium, typically considered a means of recording fact, is manipulated by both artists to subvert the notion of photography as a conduit of objective truth. The androgynous costume conceals the subject’s true appearance and character, undermining the supposed ‘truthfulness’ of the photographic image. Indeed, by separating this image from the double portrait, Prince has removed it from its original context and bestowed new meaning upon this single image of Sherman. Thus, by incorporating Sherman’s characteristic dress-up practice and Prince’s style of appropriating images in which the figure is often isolated, both artists are creator and subject in this masterfully clever double-twist on authenticity and identity.