‘RICHARD PRINCE: SPIRITUAL AMERICA’ AT GUGGENHEIM SEPT. 28

AVV 7-23 #707130

NEW YORK CITY — The exhibition “Richard Prince: Spiritual America” will open at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum September 28 and run through January 9.

This critical overview of Richard Prince’s career is the most comprehensive examination of the celebrated American artist’s work to date. The exhibition highlights Prince’s contributions to the development of contemporary art, bringing together key examples of his photographs, paintings, sculptures and works on paper in an installation that integrates the various series comprising his oeuvre.

Prince’s work has been among the most innovative art produced in the United States during the past 30 years. His deceptively simple act in 1977 of rephotographing advertising images and presenting them as his own ushered in an entirely new, critical approach to artmaking — one that questioned notions of originality and the privileged status of the unique aesthetic object.

Prince’s technique involves appropriation; he pilfers freely from the vast image bank of popular culture to create works that simultaneously embrace and critique a quintessentially American sensibility: the Marlboro Man, muscle cars, biker chicks, off-color jokes, gag cartoons and pulp fiction.

Unlike previous examinations of his art, this exhibition and its accompanying catalog also focus on the work’s iconography and how it registers prevalent themes in the social landscape, including a fascination with rebellion, an obsession with fame and a preoccupation with the tawdry and the illicit.

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is at 1071 Fifth Avenue, at 89th Street. For information, 212-423-3500 or www.guggenheim.org.