Richard Prince has taken over the Gagosian showroom located behind their bookstore on Madison Avenue. He's filled the space with 38 portraits, each 65 by 48 inches, taken from his Instagram feed. It's a stark room populated by Internet pages, printed on canvas, enlarged, and hung tightly together. The most remarkable feature of the show is that the printouts are reflected perfectly in Gagosian's shiny floor. Thin offerings for anyone who is in possession of a brain.
Among the Instagram posts Prince has selected are topless images of models (including Cara Stricker), artists posing suggestively (including Kay Goldberg), and salacious portraits of celebrities known for being pretty (including Pamela Anderson, Elizabeth Scarlett Jagger, and Kate Moss). Underneath the images and comments, Prince shares his thoughts. “Don't du anything. Just B Urself © ®," he advises Goldberg. I thought the copyright and registered trademark symbols were references to his own experiments in authorship that began back in 1975, but it's probably not that deep.
In another image, he writes under young singer-songwriter Sky Ferreira's portrait of herself in the passenger seat of a red sports car: “Enjoyed the ride today. Let's do it again. Richard." If she had a snide response to the leering comment, we never learn what it was. Like a true troll, Prince always gives himself the last word.