Richard Prince

Summary

Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin

Guest: Richard Prince
Release Date: February 19, 2025

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Episode Overview

This riveting episode of Tetragrammaton features renowned artist Richard Prince in a wide-ranging conversation with Rick Rubin and co-hosts. Prince, known for his boundary-pushing work in appropriation, photography, painting, and books, reflects on his artistic evolution, groundbreaking innovations like "rephotography" and the joke paintings, his forays into music, legal battles, curatorial pursuits, and his lasting friendships in both the art and music worlds.

Their discussion delves into how Prince's work interrogates authorship, authenticity, and the intersection of popular culture with high art. The episode reveals Prince's process, sources of inspiration, and his lifelong quest for truth and originality, all told in his characteristically understated and wry tone.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Early Days and Breakthrough — "Rephotography"

• Arrival in New York, 1974: Prince describes moving to NYC with the vague notion of a three-month visit that became permanent (18:39).
• The Decade of Obscurity: Between 1977 and 1987, he worked, showed his art, and developed ideas but found little institutional recognition (00:02).
• First Breakthrough:
  • Discovered what became known as “rephotography”—taking photographs of existing images (ads, magazines) rather than creating original scenes.
  • Called the camera an “electronic scissor” (01:15).
  • Reimagined the decisive moment: “I could look through the viewfinder at 10 in the morning and come back at 4 in the afternoon. And I would see basically the same thing. Nothing has changed. So the whole idea of the decisive moment completely eradicated” (01:14).
• Why Ads?
  • Worked at Time Life, collected ad images nobody else wanted (03:31).
  • Fascinated by the lack of “author” and ad images’ “virtuoso reality that’s so real it’s unreal” (04:10).
  • “I started to rephotograph what was plentiful, what was always there. I wasn’t on a treasure hunt.” (04:55)
• Naming and Influence:
  • First called it "pirating," referencing sampling in music (05:03).
  • Preferred to view himself as part of a generational shift shaped by TV and mass media (06:03).
• Quote:

  “Who’s the author behind these? They’re art directed images. They have a virtuoso reality...so real that it’s unreal.” – Richard Prince (04:10)

2. Art Movements, Context, Influences

• Community:
  • Early influences from narrative art and other artists using photography in unconventional ways (08:42).
  • John Gibson Gallery was pivotal, as were influences like Vito Acconci, Dennis Oppenheim, etc.
• Art Movements in the Late '70s:
  • "Minimum, conceptual, post-studio" arts were winding down, paving the way for the "Pictures Generation", of which Prince was part (17:19).
  • Other members included Cindy Sherman, Robert Longo, Barbara Kruger, Jack Goldstein, et al. (18:39).

3. Developing His Style and Rationale

• On Appropriation:
  • Prince tried to remove “interpretation” and subjectivity, striving for a “non-fiction” approach to art (14:27).
  • “The idea of making it into a real photograph—I believe…well, photographs, you tend to believe.” (14:48)
• Photography as a Filter:
  • Photography, like music tubes, colors reality—it “adds a truth” (11:46).
• Radical Content, Ordinary Presentation:
  • The ordinariness of framing was purposeful: “It was the content that was radical.” (13:01)

4. The Joke Paintings

• Origin:
  • In 1985, Prince wanted to draw again, but not make things up. He began redrawing cartoons and then simply writing out joke punchlines (22:09-24:23).
  • Sought “truth” and believability by removing his own subjectivity from the work (23:32-23:54).
• First Joke:
  • “I went to a psychiatrist. He said, ‘Tell me everything.’ I did. So he’s doing my act.” (33:03)
• Sales and Reception:
  • Jokes were the first works that sold (25:54, 35:49).
  • On his feelings: “If I had walked into a gallery and had seen someone put handwritten jokes up on a wall and call them their art, I would have been jealous. And when I have that feeling, I know that’s where the arrow should be pointing.” (36:30)
• Medium Experiments:
  • From handwriting to silkscreen (37:48), then painting and stenciling (51:08).
  • Sometimes reintroduced cartoons, purposefully mismatching joke and image (51:21).

5. Notable Legal Battles & Risk

• Appropriation Suits:
  • Prince discusses being sued over both earlier "Rasta" works and Instagram portraits.
  • On his legal ordeal: "It had taken a toll on me. Eight years. Takes a toll. Mentally, it's horrible. But on the back of my mind, I said, I'm gonna have this video. [...] It's just me talking about art. Yeah, that's it." (79:45-80:57).
  • Final work was a nearly 7-hour film comprised solely of his deposition, called Deposition (78:03-81:14).

6. Instagram Portraits & Going Viral

• Biggest Hit:
  • The Instagram portraits, made from screenshots and Prince’s own comments, brought him mainstream attention and backlash for the first time (56:38-62:18).
  • Kids at school “got hammered.” (67:00)
  • Massive controversy about using public Instagram photos for art that sold for high prices (67:47).
  • “The hate was unbelievable...it blew up into a shit storm.” (67:27, 67:49)
• Gallery Fallout:
  • Prince, angered by the gallery’s failure to recognize the cultural moment, took down the show early—an event he filmed:

    "I took the show down myself because I was really pissed that they didn't say 'extended for another two weeks.' And I left the gallery. I left Gagosian that day." (69:59-70:01)

7. Prince as Collector, Curator, and Maker

• Curating Homages:
  • Planned an exhibit called "Collection" to showcase his homages to other artists, e.g., Warhol, Pollock, de Kooning, Picasso (121:31-125:39).
• Personal Archives:
  • Collects jokes, rare books (especially Beat literature and first editions), memorabilia (126:29), and more.
• Publishing:
  • Runs his own publishing company, Fulton Rider, releasing small-batch books and zines (119:20).
• On Organizing His Work:
  • “I make bodies of work and I always have… I just don’t see how you’re going to organize it.” (119:41)

8. Music, Collaboration, and the "Glenn Branca Band"

• Played in bands with other artists, often at the fringe of the NYC music scene (20:35, 93:52).
• Noted how musicians like Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo spun out of Glenn Branca's experimental compositions, eventually forming Sonic Youth (95:16).
• On crossover with legendary musicians: detailed meetings with Bob Dylan and Paul McCartney, sharing insight into musicians' forays into visual art (105:46, 111:28).

9. Making Art and Process

• On Labor, Assistance, and the Studio:
  • "Once [art] becomes labor... I get so detached and bored and I want to move on to the next body of work or another process because I have no desire to work for a living, basically." (83:49)
• On Bringing Ideas Into the World:
  • “You can just share it with yourself, just to, you know... I mean, I make a lot of things that I need to make just to see what they look like.” (85:19)
  • Happy to let work "sit in the racks for maybe almost 15 years" before showing it (85:34).
• On Community:
  • The camaraderie of artists, spontaneous gallery visits, and shared inspiration formed a critical part of his process (131:33).

10. Philosophy, Longevity, and the Nature of Art

• On Persistence, Rejection, and Originality:
  • "If the work wasn't rejected, then I'm... I mean, I don't know. It's not like I wanted to be rejected... but being hated is better than nobody caring. Well, there's an emotion." (134:04, 134:18)
• Definition of an Artist:
  • “I still think an artist is essentially an antisocial creature who basically just is in a room doing something by themselves, and their audience doesn’t really have one at the moment of the making, or, and probably won’t for a while.” (134:44)
• On Art as Recognition:
  • "I think it's recognition. You're able to receive it, whereas most of the population, all that got taken away from them by probably around age six. Somehow the artist. Something didn't get removed." (137:11)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the decisive moment in photography:

  "The whole idea of the decisive moment completely eradicated." (01:14, Richard Prince)

• On authorship in ad images:

  "Who's the author behind these? ...They have a virtuoso reality that's so real that it's unreal." (04:10, Richard Prince)

• On making joke paintings:

  "If I had walked into a gallery and had seen someone put handwritten jokes up on a wall and call them their art, I would have been jealous." (36:30, Richard Prince)

• On Instagram portraits controversy:

  "The hate was unbelievable... It blew up into a shit storm." (67:27, Richard Prince)

• On what it means to be an artist:

  "I still think an artist is essentially an antisocial creature who basically just is in a room doing something by themselves..." (134:44, Richard Prince)

• On rejection versus indifference:

  "Being hated is better than nobody caring. Well, there's an emotion." (134:18, Interviewer 2)

• On discovering the “Doors” piece in his studio:

  "There were these four doors that were leaning up against the wall, and I looked at them, I said, oh, that's the Doors. I said, don't throw those away. Let's weld them together in a row. And the Chevy Impala is going to be Jim. That's Jim Morrison." (92:45, Richard Prince)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:02 – Arrival in NYC, the decade before recognition
• 01:15 – Discovery of rephotography, "electronic scissor"
• 04:10 – Conceptualizing authorship and reality in images
• 13:04 – Early audience confusion ("What is it?")
• 17:12 – Context of 1977—punk, new art scenes
• 18:39 – The Pictures Generation and Prince’s peer group
• 22:09 – Beginning of joke paintings, philosophy behind them
• 33:03 – First joke painting punchline
• 36:30 – Realization about jealousy and originality
• 51:08 – Evolution of joke mediums (handwriting to silkscreen, painting)
• 56:36 – Instagram portraits and going viral
• 67:27 – The "shit storm" of social media backlash
• 78:03 – Deposition film, legal battles, performance
• 85:34 – Letting finished work sit for years
• 93:06 – Realization behind the "Doors" artwork
• 105:46 – Meeting Bob Dylan; on musicians in art
• 119:20 – Launching his own publishing company
• 131:33 – Artistic community and importance of camaraderie
• 134:44 – Definitive statement on being an artist

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Additional Highlights

On Book Collecting and Dyslexia

• Began reading late due to dyslexia: “I didn’t read until I was, like, 22. But when I started, it flipped...” (126:29)
• Collects books for their covers, with a focus on Beat writers and first editions (125:42).

On Music

• Collaborations with both artists and musicians, including a firsthand account of playing in Glenn Branca’s band shortly before Sonic Youth emerged (95:16).
• Describes unique methods for making music (two-cassette overdubbing), and the spiritual “loudness” of his only released song (104:37).

On Furniture, Hoods, and Americana

• Paints car hoods and doors; the secret knowledge and subcultural symbols embedded in these choices (90:21, 92:45).

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Conclusion

This episode is a rare, unfiltered exploration of Richard Prince’s mind and work, capturing his wit, skepticism, love of pop culture, and his stubborn pursuit of new forms and truths in art. For listeners interested in the blurred lines between originality and appropriation, fine art and mass culture, and the sacrifices and revelations of a lifelong artist, this conversation is essential.

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For Further Listening

• Tetragrammaton All Episodes
• Richard Prince Official Site
• Picture Generation at the Met

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For comments or questions on this summary, or for more episode breakdowns, contact us.

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End of Summary

Transcript

[Richard Prince]

Tetragrammaton. I got to New York in 74, and in 77, I kind of made a breakthrough. But for about. For about 10 years to 87, nothing. I mean, I had shows and I had artist friends.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

And my artist.

[Interviewer 2]

What was that first breakthrough?

[Richard Prince]

It was re. It was. Now they call it RE photography.

[Interviewer 1]

Oh, yeah.

[Richard Prince]

And it was just simply me.

[Interviewer 2]

Do they call it rephotography or do you call it.

[Richard Prince]

Okay, it was a very awkward term at the time because I. I was trying to figure out what I was doing.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

And basically I picked up a camera and I tried to play it as if it was an instrument because I didn't know anything about it. I had no clue about how to work a camera. But I thought, well, all my friends are picking up guitars and they don't know how to play the guitar, but they're going to CBGV's and.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

And within a week they got a gig. So maybe I could do the same thing with the camera. And I called it an electronic scissor. Meaning if I looked at another image through the viewfinder. Let's just say if I tore out a advertising image of a cowboy like the Marmo, and I push. Pinned it to the wall and then stood, put my camera in front and. And look through the lens and kind of cropped. And two things would happen. I could look through the viewfinder at 10 in the morning and come back at 4 in the afternoon. And I would see basically the same thing. Nothing has changed. So the whole idea of the decisive moment.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

Completely eradicated.

[Interviewer 2]

So then it's a new form of photography.

[Richard Prince]

And the other thing was the idea of the electronic scissor. Instead of tearing the page out of the magazine and scotch taping or cutting it and pasting it and collaging, I made a real photograph. It wasn't a collage anymore. There were no scenes.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Interviewer 2]

And it was a new piece that didn't exist before.

[Richard Prince]

And it was a real photograph.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

So those two things happened, but it took a while because I didn't know what I was doing. So I started writing about it and. But my audience at the time were just a few artists who kind of dug it and thought it was interesting.

[Interviewer 2]

Tell me how you felt about it at the time. Did you think it was interesting?

[Richard Prince]

I thought it was. I thought it was new.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

I thought it was interesting because, well, the photography part of the art world completely rejected it. And I was also picking images that weren't necessarily aesthetically pleasing, you know, advertising images.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

Because I was Working at Time Life magazine. And they published seven magazines at the time. And, and when I would come in Mondays, there would always be a set of the new magazines. Just like I would be excited then because I would go through the magazine and say, well, maybe there's a new cowboy or maybe there's a new watch. Because my job was to tear up the magazines and give the editorial which they call hard copies. And what, at the end of the day all, all I was left with. With these images of advertisements. Yeah. But nobody called for them.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

And I kept looking at them thinking, well, there's no real author. Who's the author behind these are art directed images. They're very real. They have a virtuoso reality that's so real that it's unreal.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

So it's, it's something I didn't really need to think about the meaning they didn't really have. I just could organize them like I think it was what it was a William Gibson, some sort of pattern recognition. And you know, I would, I would notice like there was a lot of watch ads, a lot of pens, perfume. And so I would just start to re photograph what was plentiful, what was always there.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

I wasn't on a treasure hunt. I was just whatever was presented to me that week.

[Interviewer 2]

Did you call it re photography right.

[Richard Prince]

Away or did you take that? What's interesting too is that at first I was calling what I was doing pirating because I was very, I was very aware of what was going on with sampling. Yeah, it had just started, you know, but I thought I didn't really was comfortable with appropriation. That seemed a little academic. But I also ran into other artists who were also working with images. So that was important to me too, you know, to become friends with other people that had that kind of sensibility of growing up at a particular time.

[Interviewer 2]

Do you think it's just the nature of the time and the place and the way information comes at you that other people see. They don't see what you see the way you see it, but they are looking at the same thing and then having their own interpretation of how to deal with this information.

[Richard Prince]

Absolutely. I think we were the first generation to grow up with television. And you know, there was always television, magazine movies, at least if you ask the artists that I came up with, they would probably have a very similar experience.

[Interviewer 2]

And if you think before television and magazines there wasn't really a place for advertising.

[Richard Prince]

Not really.

[Interviewer 2]

Advertising was a new thing.

[Richard Prince]

Yeah, yeah. And it certainly was for me. It was A conceptual thing, too. How do you frame this particular type of thing, this product? And I was always interested in the concept of, like, for instance, the guy that presented the cowboy to Marlboro was a guy named Leo burnett. And in 1949, year I was born, this guy Lacombe, this photographer did an essay on cowboys. And on the COVID of Life that, you know, there, if you look at that cover, it looks like a Marlboro, kind of like a Marlboro guy. So that was in 49. And this guy Leo Burnett, I think, pitched the idea to Marlboro in 53. You know, he wanted a more masculine deal. So all this was very conceptual, and I liked it. And. And I. And I. I liked reading about the background. It was kind of interesting to me because I was living inside of a giant novel in Time Life. The building itself became the incubator. It had its own hospital cafeteria, bookstore.

[Interviewer 2]

Where was it?

[Richard Prince]

It was right across from Radio City. Musical.

[Interviewer 1]

Cool.

[Richard Prince]

And I would just. I basically haunted that place, went to the archives. I. I would go and do research, you know. But, yeah, Time Life was my studio. Amazing. I mean, because I didn't have a studio.

[Interviewer 2]

No, but it's amazing. The resources and the information.

[Richard Prince]

And I actually looked forward. I had a stupid job. Of course, it was just a job turning up the magazine, but I actually. And, you know, I had to have something to pay the. You know, I had a crappy little apartment in the East Village.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

But I had to have something to pay the rent. But I actually didn't really mind going there because it. It kind of like, that's where it happened, really. For me, for some reason, there was this kind of thing going on where artists were documenting what they did in photographic and then narrative form, and they would, like, be pasting it up on these pieces of cardboard or. And that's what they would show. And there was a gallery called John Gibson that was kind of dedicated to this way of working. And I really hung out at that gallery. Like, I really was a pastor, kind of like a. You know, do you need coffee? I mean, I. I would do anything. And I became friends with the. The wife's owner, and she tolerated my presence on. And, you know. But, you know, Vito Acconci would show there, and Dennis Oppenheim. But then there were these other people, James Collins and Peter Hutchinson, and it was called now, and they called it narrative art, but they used photography. They weren't photographers. And that. So that was a kind of a stepping stone also. So I think the two. The combination of that gallery and then the Time Life Experience. I remember there were four advertisements in the New York Times magazine section that came out, I think of living rooms, you know, really dumb looking, generic, like.

[Interviewer 2]

From a Sears catalog. What would look. You'd see in a Sears catalog a.

[Richard Prince]

Model living room like from a sitcom.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Interviewer 2]

Nothing that anyone would ever actually live in.

[Richard Prince]

I, you know, but apparently that's what people did.

[Interviewer 2]

Hard to know, you know, and it.

[Richard Prince]

Wasn'T like they were. It wasn't like I looked at them as some sort of alien or sci fi or social science fiction. I just thought this isn't something that, that if I put this up at a gallery, I don't know if I'm going to get away with this. I, I don't know if people are going to because I don't know if I even liked it.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

And I felt very uncomfortable and it kind of visually, it wasn't very inviting. It wasn't very, it wasn't beautiful. I mean, but there was something that I needed to do. But what was my contribution? What was. How, how was I, you know, transformatively? And that's where the camera came in. That's where the camera really surrounded the living room. When I looked through the lens, it was like absorbing.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Interviewer 2]

I was gonna say the nature of photography also adds, you can call it a filter or a.

[Richard Prince]

Adds a truth.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah, yeah.

[Interviewer 2]

It's in music sometimes if you have equipment with tubes, it's more pleasant to listen to the sound through the tubes. And you could say it's more truthful, but in a way it's more colored, it's more beautiful than what the musician heard. The tube is doing its thing. And photography can do that. You know, in films, you know, you can see Technicolor. You know, obviously Technicolor is not what the world looks like.

[Richard Prince]

It's beautiful. Yeah. No, it's. And you know that these images are highly art directed. After the images taken too. On all the, yeah. All the prep work that goes in before they're published. But the idea of presenting these living rooms as, as a standalone photograph which then I presented as normally as possible.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

Just like other photographers. Like I'm mad at it.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

Framed it.

[Interviewer 2]

Just ordinary.

[Richard Prince]

Very ordinary.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Interviewer 2]

It was the content that was radical.

[Richard Prince]

And when you and I remember when I first exhibited, people like would look at them and they weren't quite sure. Is this, it wasn't even a question of is this your photograph or who? I mean, what, what is it? It just like what. And that's What I was kind of, that was the kind of reaction that I received that I got. But I knew that, that that was a reaction that no one else was getting from their work. And I felt that, yeah, maybe this is a little different.

[Interviewer 2]

Did your opinion of it change after you showed it? Did you have a deeper understanding of it when you showed it?

[Richard Prince]

A little bit. I, I, I remember trying to. Is there a way to make them more beautiful? I remember thinking about that because at first I was not only, I mean, the living rooms, you know, there were always more than one. I mean, one you might not believe, but you, you have to believe that there's four of them.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

Four different living rooms, different furniture, different, you know.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

I was always trying to take the speculation out of the, of the work that the idea of the guessing, the umpiring, you know, the judgment. I was trying to take as much interpretation and put as much non fiction into the work as I could.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

And the idea of making it into a real photograph, I believe. Well, photographs, you tend to believe. A photograph.

[Interviewer 2]

Yeah, a photograph is nonfiction but interesting. What you're photographing is sort of fiction, sort of.

[Richard Prince]

It was until I rephotographed.

[Interviewer 2]

Yeah, but it was real. It was real furniture, but it was art directed in a way where it was not someone's living room. Likely. It was likely a set. Yeah, but when you photographed it, then it became real.

[Richard Prince]

Then if he had this virtuoso reality to it. And I think at the time, what was in the air at the time around 77, was this idea of like, what's real, what's not real? That was the big question. Who do I believe in or what do I believe?

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[Interviewer 2]

What else can you remember that was going on in 77?

[Richard Prince]

Well, I mean, there was the. I mean, I thought the punk thing.

[Interviewer 2]

Was Sex Pistols would have been 77.

[Richard Prince]

Yeah. And I. And I thought 77 was a year in which I thought a lot of things in the art world were beginning. You know, my generation was just starting with their. You know, getting their chops together and just starting to have the opportunity to maybe form collectives and show each other what they were up to, and then maybe even showing publicly in alternative spaces. And. And I think the. The conceptual and the minimalists and the post studio were kind of winding down. But I think back at any time during, at least in my experience, the art, there's always three or four, maybe even five things going on at the same time. Different types of styles or different types of scenes. And, you know, I belonged, for lack of a term, you know, they call us the picture generation, you know, And I sort of was hanging around with that crowd.

[Interviewer 2]

Who else was in that group?

[Richard Prince]

Well, you know, people like Cindy Sherman, people like Troy Brontok, Robert Longo. Jack Goldstein was a very important. He was a little older than us, but he. He was a guy named James Welling. Barbara Krueger was a really good friend of mine at the time. And I'm not sure what happens now in the art world, but I don't know if people get together. But it's one of the things that I remember. I mean, luck has a lot to do with all of this, but I think I was very lucky because I. Only. When I came to New York in 74, I came for, like, the idea of staying for three months, and it just turned into, like, forever. You know, I just kept saying, with.

[Interviewer 2]

The idea of becoming a fine artist.

[Richard Prince]

Well, I was already. I was already making work very traditional.

[Interviewer 2]

Tell me, before that, like, how did you come to the idea of this is what you want to do as a kid?

[Richard Prince]

I was always. I was always interested in. In making art. Drawing as a child. You know, like, when people say, you know, people can play the piano by ear, I think they call it. I was able to draw. I could sit down with a pencil and draw a portrait of my grandfather or. Or my sister or whoever was around. And. And it. I could make it look like. Without any. Yeah, I could do that when I was like, nine. I mean, it was just like something natural.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

You know, it was easy. I mean, I never really thought about it. Yeah, I Never had to.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

Never even give it a second thought. But I mostly, I got, you know, really sidetracked into wanting to become a musician. I mean, that was my first.

[Interviewer 2]

Do you play an instrument?

[Richard Prince]

I. I do. I've. I, you know, I have over the years played in little, you know, bands. I mean, every artist, we were all in bands and everything like that.

[Interviewer 2]

What instrument do you play?

[Richard Prince]

A little piano and a little guitar. It always seemed with the music thing, I didn't like the idea of performing or being, you know, having to do it public. The idea of collaboration wasn't a big thing with me. And the idea of acting or, you know, having a. That kind of shtick on stage is never, you know, appealed to me or. And I would, I'd always thought I'd hit a wall. I always hit a wall with the, with the. Even, even the idea of playing the guitar. I could only go so far with the art. There's never been a problem with that. There's never, there's never been a stop. Things just come out of that, you know, and they, and they still do.

[Interviewer 1]

It's great.

[Richard Prince]

It's. It's very strange how they all. And I go back.

[Interviewer 2]

So you might go back to re photographing.

[Richard Prince]

I rephotograph. I still re photograph. I still. Occasionally I'm trying to make a new cowboy type image.

[Interviewer 2]

Great.

[Richard Prince]

I never gave. Given up on the jokes. The jokes are just endless.

[Interviewer 2]

Tell me the story of the jokes. How did it start?

[Richard Prince]

I wanted to draw again. This is like 85. I moved into a house with musicians. There were friends of mine and they were. They were trying to make music.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

But I wanted to draw again because I had given up drawing. I've given up anything with the. Associated with the hand. I had read things that always not associated with anything with the hand anymore. And I kind of said, well, maybe I'll turn that around. So I decided I wanted to draw. But what do you draw? That's the thing for me. Subject matters first. Interpretation or how to do it is second, you know. So going through all these magazines, I, I always loved the cartoons. You know, whether it was in Playboy, New Yorker, Easy Rider had some really great cartoons. And I said, I'm going to draw something that's already been drawn again. I didn't want to make things up. Yeah, I had this idea. I didn't want to.

[Interviewer 2]

You're like documenting something that's already in the world.

[Richard Prince]

I didn't want to like. I didn't want it to start with me.

[Interviewer 2]

Yeah, I wanted it you know what it is about that?

[Richard Prince]

It's interesting because I wanted to be. I wanted it to be believed. I want to be. I want to believe what I look at. I wanted people to believe what they looked at when they were looking at what I did.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

But if it came for me, like, if I said, oh, I dreamt this. What. Why would anyone believe that?

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

You know, I was interested in the truth.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

So again, if I could just take as much interpretation out of and like, the idea of the critic or the judge or the umpire weighing in.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

I didn't. I didn't need that. I didn't want that. Subjectivity was something I wasn't interested in. It had always been associated with art.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

I wanted to go beyond that. So the idea of drawing something that was already drawn. Oh, cartoons drawn. So I just redrew my favorite. This guy named Whitney Darrow was one of my favorite cartoonists. So I redrew it. But I. I knew what to do and how to do it because I, you know, craft, unfortunately, it makes it easier if you know a little bit about the craft. And I knew, you know, you could spend years in an art supply store just picking up paper, but I knew what paper to use. I knew what hot press darsh was. I knew a number 4B pencil. I knew exactly what to use right away, and I could just do it that day.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Interviewer 2]

So very little experimentation.

[Richard Prince]

So I just redrew the cartoon, and you draw it.

[Interviewer 2]

Scale, same size, Same.

[Richard Prince]

About. About this big.

[Interviewer 1]

Uhhuh.

[Interviewer 2]

And the original was smaller?

[Richard Prince]

Yes, a little bit. And it was a spot on reproduction. But it was hand drawn.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

Even the. The punchline.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

And I started calling. But the thing was, I called them.

[Interviewer 2]

Jokes, but they were comics.

[Richard Prince]

They were cartoons. Yeah. And I realized after a while, so I would send. And it was funny. I sent these cartoons to this guy in Chicago, and lo and behold, I would get a check in the mail for $3,500. Astounding to me, because I was. None of my art ever sold. These were the very first things.

[Interviewer 2]

Is that true? So up until this point, nothing sold.

[Richard Prince]

I mean, nothing. Nothing. The cowboys, when they were first shown, Nothing.

[Interviewer 2]

Nothing ever.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

None of the photographs that were shown. So I sent them to this guy Hudson, who had a gallery in Chicago, and he didn't have a show, he just sold them. I said, this is. This is great. This is unbelievable.

[Interviewer 2]

Were you operating under the assumption that nothing would ever sell at that point?

[Richard Prince]

Of course, yeah. I was trying to find.

[Interviewer 2]

How many years has it been?

[Richard Prince]

It had Been. It had been, like, since 70. 1970. 71. I was making drawings and. But long story short, I was calling them jokes. And I realized it's not a joke.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

If I wanted a joke.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

And again, this. This is what happens.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

I said to myself, I've got to drop the image and just concentrate on the punchline.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Interviewer 2]

Because you're calling them jokes.

[Richard Prince]

Yeah.

[Interviewer 2]

You also could have gone the other way and decided to call them cartoons, but you didn't do that.

[Richard Prince]

I. And, yeah, but. And then I had this.

[Interviewer 2]

Did you feel like the fact that you were calling them jokes was like a clue? Nobody. Also was like an arrow, and the arrow hit.

[Richard Prince]

So 85 turns into 86. I was invited back to the ICP International center for Photography to give a lecture on my photography.

[Interviewer 2]

You know, like, I thought, they don't like you.

[Richard Prince]

Yeah. And I get there, and there's a fucking line around the block. I'm thinking there's going to be, what, five or six people.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

And what I don't realize is that apparently, you know, of course, I'd had shows in New York, but there was a little bit of a underground audience for the work. And so we're talking about maybe eight years into this practice that people wanted to find out more. Of course, I have a. It was organized by a very good friend of mine, Marvin Heiferman, who was the first guy to show the photographs. And of course, I have a panic attack, and I can hardly go in.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

I mean, I just flipped out.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

And I had subletted my apartment. Go back to my apartment. I got a call from this gallerist wanting to come over for a studio visit. And I. I said to the woman, I said, well, I don't have a studio, but I'd love to come to your gallery.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

And the next thing I know, I. I move in. I move into the gallery. Wow. They have a back room.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

Which I took over.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

And I started looking. I started buying joke magazines. I. I remember going to the Strand, and I'd go to the humor section. I started checking out all these jokes.

[Interviewer 2]

And it was important that you would never write a joke.

[Richard Prince]

No. Not at that point.

[Interviewer 2]

It had to be found material.

[Richard Prince]

Yeah.

[Interviewer 2]

And did you have to like the joke or was it something else?

[Richard Prince]

I. The joke, in the end, had to be. It was a way of. For me, it was a way of surviving. It was serious. It was the way they were written, too. Jokes are very strange sentences, the way they're. You know, like, the structure of the structure of the sentences. Very different from other sentences.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

Like, my father was always drinking. He saw a sign that says, Drink Canada Dry. So he went up there. Yeah, that's the joke. And that's a very weird sentence.

[Interviewer 2]

Awkward.

[Richard Prince]

Awkward. And I was very much into comedians, too. I think they're really kind of important. There's no doubt in my mind. At least for me, they're important.

[Interviewer 1]

Me too.

[Richard Prince]

You know, who are your favorites? Well, I mean, you know, Lenny Bruce, obviously, Richard Pryor, Dick Gregory was a big. You know, I, I just found that Bob Newhart 1959 album, the Button, Button Down Mind, which became a huge.

[Interviewer 2]

Yeah, had a good cover.

[Richard Prince]

But, you know, I loved all the comedians. I used to watch as a kid on Ed Sullivan, you know, Jackie Carter, Jackie Vernon. I loved all the borsch belt. You know, Rodney Dangerfield is perhaps maybe the biggest comedian for me. I mean, George Cullen's a genius, you know, but.

[Interviewer 2]

But Rodney special.

[Richard Prince]

Rodney's very special. I, I managed finally, after about 10 years, negotiating with his wife to buy his archive.

[Interviewer 2]

Amazing.

[Richard Prince]

And it's, you know, I have. I've gotten to. I bought Milton Berle at a. An estate sale. His archive. I managed to buy his. All his jokes were written on these card files, and they're organized by. By subject.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah. Great.

[Richard Prince]

When you asked me about the straight arrow.

[Interviewer 1]

Yes.

[Richard Prince]

Because to me, the joke was like the re photography for me. And I never thought I'd make another breakthrough.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

But, you know, the cartoons were okay. It was, you know, the idea of redrawing something that was already drawn. But when I got to New York and I went to. And I never went back to California, I just left all my stuff and I moved into this gallery, and she gave me this back room as a studio because I didn't have a studio. I said, what? How do I deal with the jokes? And so I decided first to write them by hand because, again, I wasn't associated. I would write them in my own handwriting and I would pick jokes that were fairly autobiographical. So it was sort of like self portrait. That's all very simple idea jokes that.

[Interviewer 2]

Related to you or your life.

[Richard Prince]

It's like, I should have written that joke.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

But it's okay. I don't have to. It's already been written. I'll write it again and I'll put it on an 11 by 14 coated stock. I went down to this warehouse on Broadway, just spent days looking for the right piece of paper. Ended up with this 11 by 14 coated stock. And I wrote out the first joke Was I went to a psychiatrist. He said, tell me everything. I did. So he's doing my act. And I didn't get it. I just. But the idea. And like, where, where do I locate myself in that joke? Am I the psychiatrist? Am I the patient?

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

And. And the idea of what's your act? And doing my act, of course. What is my act?

[Interviewer 2]

Exactly.

[Richard Prince]

And it was the perfect joke. What is my act.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

And I realized I don't have an act. So what is the psychiatrist even talking about? Doing my act. Now he's doing my act. Oh, so I have an act. So anyway, I write it out and I pinned it to the wall and I said to myself, can I do this?

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

That's the question.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

It's not getting away with it. Can I call, Can I invite someone up and say, this is my work?

[Interviewer 1]

Yes.

[Richard Prince]

This little. Very modest.

[Interviewer 1]

Yes.

[Richard Prince]

$10.

[Interviewer 1]

Yes.

[Richard Prince]

That's the price that I put on the joke. The very first one. Yeah.

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[Interviewer 2]

So the jokes were the first thing that sold. You said the guy in Chicago.

[Richard Prince]

Sold, sold. Yeah. And then I started. I stayed in New York. At the time, I was looking for any job I could support myself with. And I knew I wasn't going to, you know, make it with the jokes, but I felt that I had to do this. It was funny. The feeling I had was if I had walked into a gallery and had seen someone put handwritten jokes up on a wall and call them their art, I Would have been jealous.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

And when I have that feeling, I know that's where the arrow should be pointing.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

I said, well, wait a minute. I don't have to be jealous. I'm. I'm the one.

[Interviewer 2]

It actually happened.

[Richard Prince]

And it happened very organically. It didn't happen overnight. Obviously it happened because I was, you know, drawing and miscalling the cartoons, jokes, and so. And also I had never seen this kind of subject matter or even the radicality of the funneling of the information down to this little piece of paper.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

But yet the telling. Tell me everything. That joke.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

I mean, yeah, I'm going to tell you everything.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

And I just sort of started ripping with the idea of the joke and it just became, okay, let's paint. And another artist, of course, would have maybe done something very crazy in terms of materials and how it was presented. My idea was that the subject matter was radical. I didn't need to radicalize how it was presented.

[Interviewer 2]

You presented it in an ordinary way.

[Richard Prince]

So I decided, what's more ordinary than stretchers, canvas and paint completely every day? And that's what I. And then I decided to learn how to silk screen because silkscreen at that point was a dead medium. Warhol had exhausted it. I was a huge fan, of course, of Warhol, but he had exhausted it. There was only one silk screening company left in New York that was on Varick street, and there were no more silkscreen inks because they were outlawed, because they were so toxic. So the only silkscreen ink were hobby inks, which, when you used them, they would fade away in three months. They would disappear. And of course, that's what happened to some of my jokes. When you talk about collectors.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah, yeah.

[Richard Prince]

I had a collector call me up three months after he bought one of my jokes and said, richard, the joke is disappeared. And I said, well, I'll give you an option. And it's funny. This guy was Albert Brooks's brother, the comedian's brother. And actually he was one of the funniest. And he ran an ad agency and he was one of the funniest guys I'd ever. I never met Albert Brooks, but his brother was a big time Los Angeles collector. Calls me up, jokes disappeared, it's a ghost. And I said, well, tell you what, I'll buy it back, but there are only four of those. And I said, you know, I used magic ink, disappearing ink. I mean, I completely like bullshit that we're supposed to do this, but I said, don't worry. I mean, I'll buy it back because there's only four.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah, of course.

[Richard Prince]

That's what collectors want to hear. Yeah, I. I suppose I don't.

[Interviewer 2]

It's like the stamp that's printed upside down. You know, it's.

[Richard Prince]

I was doing my act.

[Interviewer 2]

It's more collectible.

[Richard Prince]

Yeah, exactly. I was doing my act.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

On the phone.

[Interviewer 2]

It's a question I had for you. If you had a choice of buying a Monet signed by Monet or a Monet signed by Picasso, which one do you want?

[Richard Prince]

I'm probably the one by Picasso.

[Interviewer 2]

Me too.

[Richard Prince]

I think, you know, you're getting. Especially if it's an homage. Yeah. It's an interesting question, but. Yeah, I agree. I don't want to cut.

[Interviewer 2]

It's interesting. And I was thinking about. I know you've published well known books.

[Richard Prince]

Oh, yeah.

[Interviewer 2]

That you have authored Catcher in the Rye. Catcher in the Rye, written by Richard Prince.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

You know, it's funny, that book, we took it to a number of printing presses. It wouldn't do it and I wouldn't touch. It was very, very litigious. Yes, exactly. So I think it was published finally in China. I'm not sure. A really good friend of mine, John McQuinney, who has since passed away, he was a bookseller. He operated in what I call the gray area, meaning he sold first editions and he sold art that had a little to do with book art or he was trying to marry the two when he unfortunately passed away. But he was the guy who got that off the ground and saw that. And when we got the feel of that book, when you pick it up, I mean, I'm a bibliophile, which I guess I like books more than people. I guess that's the definition. And when we got the book back from the. When it was first pulled, I could feel the weight, the paper, the. The dust jacket. Everything was perfect. I'm trying to think what was different about. I think the only thing that was different was I doubled the price of what a normal Catcher in the Rye would sell for in Barnes and Noble. That's what was different. Lots of money and other than that. Yeah, it's this, except says Richard Prince.

[Interviewer 2]

You know, is it only on the COVID inside too? Like on the page, Author's page.

[Richard Prince]

I think it's Richard. I think it's Richard Prince. I think we removed. We. On the back of the first edition of a real Katrina is the image of Salinger. He hated that image and had it removed. So we, we didn't publish it either. But it's funny. Getting back to Dangerfield, I sold that book Outside of Danger Feels on a blanket. I have pictures and I think Chris Rock is in the window looking out.

[Interviewer 2]

Amazing.

[Richard Prince]

His poster or something like that.

[Interviewer 2]

Amazing.

[Richard Prince]

There was a park bench in Central park where I would go and sell these types of certain situations. And they would get around town that, oh, he's there. And people would. I did that recently with Ted Kaczynski's book. I managed to buy the only copy of his biography that he wanted published, but his brother stopped it. So the manuscript became available to me. I don't know how, but I bought it called Truth versus Lies or something. Anyway, we. And then we published it. I didn't ask permission or we just did it. And the same thing with. Never got in trouble with Catcher. To this day, there's been no repercussions. No repercussions with the Kaczynski. Lots of trouble, though, subsequently with the problem with this idea of taking things that are out in public first, where you see them out there. And I feel like they have the idea of something that's already been seen by other people other than myself. It's already in the public that I need some. For some reason, I need that. I don't know why. In terms of my subject matter, I like, because I feel like I can make a connection. You know, I think maybe it's some.

[Interviewer 2]

Sort of deniability because it's not. The content's not coming from you. You're the author of the work, but you can't take responsibility for the thing that's underneath. Do you know what I mean? It's like if you took a picture of a person and that person goes out and kills somebody, that has nothing to do with you. You took the picture of it, you're a step removed from it.

[Richard Prince]

Well, the idea of taking a picture of someone. I actually in 80, in the mid-80s, I had an idea of how to take your portrait. And it was basically, you would give me five pictures of yourself that you liked.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

And give them to me.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

I would look at them and I would pick one. I would re photograph it and that.

[Interviewer 2]

Would be your portrait done by you.

[Richard Prince]

By. By me. And I felt no two things happened there. Well, a couple of things.

[Interviewer 2]

Everybody's happy with that arrangement. That's a great arrangement.

[Richard Prince]

You don't have to come and sit for me.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

You're not going to be disappointed.

[Interviewer 2]

No. You really like all five.

[Richard Prince]

You like all five.

[Interviewer 2]

Great.

[Richard Prince]

And there's a kind of a time warp. You could give me A picture when you were 14 years old. It's a great Avedon. Can't do that.

[Interviewer 2]

It's a great idea, you know.

[Richard Prince]

Now, I thought. I actually, when I wasn't making any money, and this was 84, this is actually how I was working with Aerof. That's how I got to the archive of the. Because then I started going through the archive of Warner Brothers and I did Dee Dee Ramon, I did the B52s, I did Laurie Anderson, I did David Byrne, Brian Eno, whoever was on the label.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

But I had permission and they own the car and I wouldn't get in any trouble with that. But I actually thought this could be a business, you know, but it still can. I'm very bad at business. But it didn't work out, you know, and unfortunately. But it was a great. I thought it was an interesting way to take someone's portrait. There's a bunch of them that are out floating around in the ether out there from 84. But the other weird thing in photography that I did, which no other photographer had done it, I made editions of two.

[Interviewer 2]

Why two?

[Richard Prince]

Because it was still a reproduction. Not much of a reproduction, but because the natural.

[Interviewer 2]

Most photographers do 250.

[Richard Prince]

I mean, I remember Mapplethorpe, we had become friends before he passed away. He was always complaining to me about, you know, I said, well, Robert, I mean, you make. First of all, you make a lot of photographs, but you make big additions. He says, yeah, why do you only make two? And I said, well, you know, I started that with the Cowboys, even though it didn't sell. But I kind of knew the idea of two was a great. You know, it was also kind of a way of not subverting, but kind of like dealing with the photography's naturalness. The camera has a lot of, you know, things that just go along, whether it's retouching.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

I would always use a commercial lab, and they all had their own way of describing the process. And I would use those terms sometimes to describe the work, because it was real.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah, it was technical.

[Richard Prince]

I didn't want to make anything up, or at least my way of making things up was different. That's all.

[Interviewer 2]

Yeah, the idea of two is really interesting and it also elevates photography through scarcity. Do you know, like, when you can make as many as you want, it can't be worth as many as if there's only two.

[Richard Prince]

I remember buying a George Tice photograph, and it was like the 250th copy of this particular image. And I was kind of like, no. And most of my, what I would call straight photographer friends, not that I had that many, but they would have huge additions. And I mean, I, I don't mind, you know, that's their business. Yeah.

[Interviewer 2]

You're doing a different model?

[Richard Prince]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it just had to be. I just thought that, I just thought it was kind of cool. In 1980, when I started the Cowboys, I had been doing editions of 10, but then I realized, well, none of them were selling, so what was the point? But so then I said, well, let's try two. Maybe, maybe again. The scarcity would help.

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[Richard Prince]

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[Interviewer 2]

Back to the jokes. It started with you did it by hand and then it turned into silk screen. And then. Is that the end of it?

[Richard Prince]

No. Then it became stenciling painting. And then I started reintroducing the cartoon on top of of the joke. And I, I would put a joke that had nothing to do with the cartoon.

[Interviewer 2]

I see.

[Richard Prince]

So the cartoon I would pick. There are certain situations that cartoonists use all the time and one of them was a woman walking in on an infidelity. That's a standard. So what I would do is I would put that as the cartoon, but the joke underneath had nothing to do with situation. So you would read the text and say it didn't make any sense. Yeah, so I would do that. Yeah, that's how I reintroduced the cartoon.

[Interviewer 2]

Really interesting.

[Richard Prince]

So really interesting. I did that for a while. Then I did some abstract paintings and put a panel attached a panel under the abstraction and Han wrote a joke. Didn't silkscreen. I just wrote it out again. Did that for a while. So 87 is when I The galleries came knocking because they realized, well, this guy's got maybe like 10. I mean, I know what their motivation was. Backlog. And, you know, there was an article in one of the art magazines, published an article. So the phone started ringing because of this one article. I was completely, like, dumbfounded, you know, so people started visiting me in that little room.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

And anyway, gallery came, made me an offer. I went with the gallery. And it's funny, our first show, I didn't. The woman, the gal, I didn't tell her anything about the choke paintings. She thought she was getting photography. And when. When I brought the work to the first show, she says, what are these? I said, well, this is my new work.

[Interviewer 2]

This is a new work.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

She says, well, where are the photographs? I'm not doing photographs. So there was a bit of a.

[Interviewer 2]

That's great.

[Richard Prince]

There was a bit of a. An impasse there.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

Because, you know, we had settled on in those days what they called a stipend, which is. I don't know if they have those anymore, but you would get a certain amount of money every month, supposedly against sales. Kind of like what they do with.

[Interviewer 2]

Music business as well.

[Richard Prince]

And so she was a little surprised. Here I'm giving you this stuff. And then what am I supposed to do with these, by the way? I said, well, they're. They're jokes.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

And I like that idea that if anything else, I started doing an act. I said, you know, I would sell. People would say, you know, I like that joke, or I like this work. I would. And I would kind of like, say, well, you like the painting or you like the joke? I would, like, start to kind of mess with people.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

And like, really, like. Because the other thing that would. Would happen is you'd walk into a guy and people would be laughing, which didn't really happen in no most show. So a lot of weird things happen because of the subject.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

You know, and of course, then in Europe, where if you couldn't language speak.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

You know, it would be the abstract. I would say, well, it's abstract. It's abstract art. It's perfect. You can just look at it. And because I would. I started to. When I started silkscreen, I started to pick two strange colors, one background. And then the joke would be silkscreen with a. With a very strange. And. And I. I felt that the color was. The cartoon was a substitute for this. You know, it was representational. So the colors became very important. And after a while, I did this thing where I would only work with like 18 jokes. Like a routine. I mean, I was really.

[Interviewer 2]

Was your act.

[Richard Prince]

That was. I was really.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Interviewer 2]

Would you do multiple of the 18 or. No, only 18. And I would do it.

[Richard Prince]

Yeah. But different scale. Sometimes it would be small, sometimes the same joke, like the psychiatrist joke, was done very. A lot over the years.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

But in different ways and.

[Interviewer 2]

Yeah, because that's like one of your hit songs, that joke.

[Richard Prince]

That's like the. The hit song. Exactly. Yeah. But I wouldn't have a hit song until. To tell you the truth, I never. Even though I was very lucky in the sense that, you know, it's not as if I haven't had museum shows and all that, which is, you know, it's okay. I mean, I'm not a big fan of being curated, but in talking about a hit show. I didn't have a hit show until I did. I don't know if you're familiar with the Instagram portraits.

[Interviewer 1]

I am.

[Richard Prince]

That was the first show that was. I felt broke out outside the art world.

[Interviewer 1]

Wow.

[Richard Prince]

Where. And that was a new territory and new things to deal with, which I hadn't ever dealt with before. I'd always been inside world.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

You know, just 25 people were my audience. I felt, you know, I was never expecting to make art that would be on the news. Like, that was preposterous. That's not something that I would want or even, you know, it's never occurred to me.

[Interviewer 2]

But what's not realistic.

[Richard Prince]

No, it's not. And you can't plan that. You can't. You know, you could try. I mean, a lot of artists probably try, but, you know, anyway, that just happens. And I didn't. Even at the time when I did the Instagram portraits, I was on Instagram for the first time because Instagram was.

[Interviewer 2]

Probably pretty new, right?

[Richard Prince]

It was 2014. It had been along a little. A little while. But I was on my. Yeah, I was on my daughter's, what they called Tumblr. I don't even know if that was. I wasn't really into the social thing, but I was specifically told by my kids, don't go on Instagram. And I didn't ask why, I just said, don't. It's not for you. So that's interesting. So I went on it, of course.

[Interviewer 2]

And then that was the only invitation.

[Richard Prince]

It was like a brand new giant magazine. I went down the rabbit hole and they lost me for a summer. Yeah, I see. I see why they told me not to go on. I became. I mean, it was like.

[Interviewer 2]

It's just too addictive.

[Richard Prince]

And so it was like again, having this thing in your room too. I always liked the idea of, could I make art in my bedroom by myself? Yeah, right.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

It's just so. Something simple. But I was on the phone one day with this woman and I was talking to her and I said, you know, she was a model. Jessica something. Anyway, I was going through her feed and of course everybody's posting lots of pictures of themselves. So I'm getting to look at not just five pictures that you like of yourself. Some of these people were posting like hundreds of pictures of themselves. So I was going through a feed and I said, jessica, there's an image of you. It looks like you're in. Somewhere in Switzerland. You're standing in front of a Brigitte Bardot Andy Warhol portrait in your skia. Skia. And I said, it's a fabulous. I don't know, I didn't care who took it. I don't pay any attention to who takes photographs. I said, this is an amazing photograph. You should, you know, make a portrait of this. And she simply said, why don't you make a portrait? And then it clicked. Of course I should make a portrait of it. And that's how it started.

[Interviewer 2]

Amazing.

[Richard Prince]

Yeah. Just like. Again, one of those things.

[Interviewer 2]

The universe just allowed it to happen, you know?

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

It just keeps. Now, if I was a musician.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

I would have still been back trying to figure out how to play F sharp on. On the guitar or, you know, there was never the arrow.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

But with the art, these things just kept happening, happening. It doesn't happen very often when you. When it does happen and it just. It makes sense. It kind of checks all the boxes and that. When she said that. And of course my niece. I'm so lame sometimes told me how to screensave. Back in those days. I don't screensave. What's this? Right. And then the image would appear on your phone in a grid. And it was organized. I said, this is. This is because I had stopped taking pictures because this analog, they got rid of slides. I only photographed with slides. Slide was my go to because it didn't take up any room. You didn't have to like print a slide. You could. It was both a positive and a negative. It's very convenient. So when they got rid of that, I just dropped, you know, I kind of like. I did the upstate thing. I took, you know, and I just. The digital. I couldn't move into the digital camera world. This was too weird for me.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

But when she Showed me the screen save. It just opened up a whole new what I call post place, meaning I can be anywhere and make art at any time, under any circumstances. And I'm not on social media much anymore. But when I did her portrait, then it started, okay, what's my. What is my contribution in terms of like. And I realized it was the comments underneath.

[Interviewer 2]

So you would just write a comment.

[Richard Prince]

So I would. I. And I started basically. Not psychic jiu jitsu or kind of Joycean riffs and. But I. I would. I would do this kind of like what I call bird talk.

[Interviewer 2]

What would be an example, Just crazy.

[Richard Prince]

Sentences that I would make up that made no sense. Most of the time I would sit with the portrait and I'd be watching TV and I'd wait for the ads and the ads would say something and I'd write it down because it would make no sense at all. Unrelated, totally unrelated to the image. Most of them were in the beginning because the logarithm would change sometimes and I would only was allowed to like, maybe make a sentence or really quick. It's almost kind of like jazz.

[Interviewer 2]

Would you make a sentence and then take a screenshot right away? Because.

[Richard Prince]

Yeah.

[Interviewer 2]

Otherwise it would move down the feed, right?

[Richard Prince]

I had, yeah. But I figured out how to get rid of. That was the other thing. I figured out how to get rid of all their comments so mine would move up.

[Interviewer 1]

How?

[Richard Prince]

I don't know how. I can't to this day. I don't know how.

[Interviewer 2]

How you knew how at that time.

[Richard Prince]

I figured it out and I don't know if you can do that anymore. I'm not sure what I was afraid of, which I didn't know at the time. Were they also losing it on their feet?

[Interviewer 2]

I see.

[Richard Prince]

But they weren't. It was only on my feet.

[Interviewer 2]

Great.

[Richard Prince]

Then what I would do is I would look at their comments and sometimes I would keep a really interesting comment belong next to yours, along next to mine, but mine would always be the bottom one.

[Interviewer 2]

I see.

[Richard Prince]

And mine would be the last sentence. And some of them, when I look back at them, I mean, for. I had to be convinced to show these images, you know, after the first.

[Interviewer 2]

One, did you think, okay, I'm off and running, I'm going to do a.

[Richard Prince]

Bunch of them, as I did. A whole bunch.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

And you know, again, I did my friends. I went on whoever had a feed. Yeah, I did my friends. I did people I didn't know. I did people that maybe I would want to know. I did people that it's Hard to know to explain why I would pick someone like the very first. How did the people show up in that very first show? Why those people? Some of them were my friends, some of that I knew, but mostly it was about the way their portraits appeared to me. They would only appear that way because they were on Instagram for some reason. It was a very strange way. They would show up sometimes with friends and it was all about. Maybe it was this distance thing. It was a very different looking type of portrait just to begin with, regardless of what I did with it. And my transfer was simply, you know, I had the option of making it into a photograph, but I decided on. It was a very new type of canvas that had just come out very white and very tightly wound. And when I saw that reproduced and I saw how the ink fused with the canvas.

[Interviewer 2]

Is it like a laser print?

[Richard Prince]

No, it was just an inkjet.

[Interviewer 2]

Inkjet.

[Richard Prince]

Yeah. Inkjet had started to become almost ubiquitous.

[Interviewer 2]

How big were the images?

[Richard Prince]

The first size, I think, was like 48 wide and maybe 54 inches tall. And now, of course, I can make them tall and I.

[Interviewer 2]

You still make them?

[Richard Prince]

Not so much anymore. But I did a book recently called New Painting where I took images of just people painting with their backs to their painting. A lot of women, some men, and just, you know, at some point, like five or six years ago, there was just so many people painting. It seemed to me like I just needed to capture that idea. And everybody was painting the same painting, it seemed. So I started doing that. We published a book again.

[Interviewer 2]

300 copies.

[Richard Prince]

Yeah. Something.

[Interviewer 2]

All the books like that.

[Richard Prince]

Yes. Some. Sometimes there are a thousand. Sometimes they never go into. I don't know. I don't think they've ever gone into a second printing. I've never done that. But now they're first small addition. I like that.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

But the. Yeah, the. The Instagram portraits got immediately. There was tension and there was crying by my kids. They got hammered at school. I mean, it came out, it became a thing and I didn't quite understand it.

[Interviewer 2]

Did people not like it?

[Richard Prince]

Oh, the hate was unbelievable. Oh, my God. And then the money. Yeah, right. Became a factor. And of course, then the people in.

[Interviewer 2]

The fact that you were selling them for a lot of money because they were desirable, collectible things in them.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

Who had no idea that they were in them.

[Interviewer 1]

No.

[Richard Prince]

And had heard about how much they were selling for. I got that. It blew up into a shit storm. It really became an issue. The way I describe my before and after is that before I owned I owned half a stereo. No one would sue me. I could do anything the I wanted. Nobody was looking.

[Interviewer 1]

No.

[Richard Prince]

In. In some ways, the before was great because I was anonymous to Just doing my thing.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

And I didn't care.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Interviewer 2]

And if people didn't like it, it was okay.

[Richard Prince]

It doesn't matter. I mean, I was just going to do it regardless because I there. No.

[Interviewer 2]

No repercussions.

[Richard Prince]

Nothing. Even when I did my own crazy gallery with the Brook Shields portrait, that was kind of cloak and dagger stuff. That was kind of fun. Lower east side. I called it even Lower Manhattan. It was really rivington back then. Was really bad neighborhood. And to go to that gallery, which was sometimes open, sometimes not open. Who's behind this gallery? I had a beard. This woman, you know, supposedly running it.

[Interviewer 2]

Amazing.

[Richard Prince]

But in those days, the idea of, like being sued, it would never occur to me. I mean, who. Who I didn't know.

[Interviewer 2]

I didn't have anybody care.

[Richard Prince]

No.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

Right. But once. But then the money. The money thing. That's the only reason why there's litigation in the first place.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Interviewer 2]

Forgetting the litigation for a minute. You put up a show, everybody's talking about it. People hate it. How are you feeling?

[Richard Prince]

I got mad and really pissed off and went to the gallery. And three days before the show was supposed to come down, I. I took the show down myself because I was really pissed that they didn't say. Extended for neck for another two weeks. And I left the gallery.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

I left.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

Gagosian. That day.

[Interviewer 2]

Wow.

[Richard Prince]

I was so pissed off.

[Interviewer 1]

Wow.

[Interviewer 2]

That they didn't see that something was happening.

[Richard Prince]

Something. Let it happen. Let it. Let it.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

Because first of all, I didn't ask to show these. I never asked. They asked me.

[Interviewer 2]

Yes.

[Richard Prince]

I didn't ask you.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

I never ask anything from a gallery.

[Interviewer 2]

But if it's a hit.

[Richard Prince]

But I never had a hit.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

I never had this much reaction and this much drama.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

And. And the.

[Interviewer 2]

I think they wanted to take it down.

[Richard Prince]

I don't think it wasn't Larry. It was the people who work under him. And I think. I don't want to even. I. I kind of know why, but I think there was some, you know, it wasn't about a scheduling thing. They could have extended it.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

But when I heard that there was no. I walked in with a video and I had two assistants, and we just. And they. And the gallery assistant came running down. What are you doing? What's going on? And I wouldn't speak.

[Interviewer 2]

Right.

[Richard Prince]

I just took them.

[Interviewer 2]

What a Great story. And you filmed it?

[Richard Prince]

We filmed it.

[Interviewer 2]

Amazing.

[Richard Prince]

And they had no idea what was going on. And I just took them off and.

[Interviewer 2]

Were they already sold?

[Richard Prince]

They all sold.

[Interviewer 2]

They all sold. But you took them back?

[Richard Prince]

I don't know what we did.

[Interviewer 2]

I'm sure eventually the people got them.

[Richard Prince]

Yes, people got them. Yeah, but I took them.

[Interviewer 2]

I, I, but you didn't want them to show it anymore because they weren't being respectful.

[Richard Prince]

Yeah, well, I'm not even sure that they knew what was going on. I, I knew. I, they knew what was going on.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

I'm sure if I had talked to Larry, which I wasn't. I wasn't really in communication that much, but I didn't want to ask.

[Interviewer 1]

No.

[Richard Prince]

Because I don't want to be beholding. I don't want to call anybody. Of course. Anything at all, ever.

[Interviewer 2]

I understand.

[Richard Prince]

So I just thought, rather than wait for it to be over, I would. I want it to be over on my terms.

[Interviewer 1]

Yes.

[Richard Prince]

But what was so strange is that we kind of made up. And three months after that, they did the. I think it was the Freeze Art Fair in New York. They did the whole booth. And that created an even bigger shitstorm because the price had tripled. And that's what caused.

[Interviewer 2]

It was Instagram again, back by popular demand.

[Richard Prince]

And, and it really looked actually in a art fair setting, it looked good. They look good on a wall. For some reason, I didn't, I wasn't convinced. I had to be convinced to show them at all. But the minute we hung them in this particular gallery that was in the back of a bookstore on the ground floor of Madison Avenue, there was something about the reflection, the scale of. You had to walk through a bookstore. So you already were. There was already text and images. So it was a very seamless trip into the next room. And it made sense.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

And they kind of wallpapered the room.

[Interviewer 2]

Great.

[Richard Prince]

And I do, you know, when you said collector. I do have one collector that I love and revere, Irving Blum. If you go to his apartment in Los Angeles, he has 20 of these things hanging in his house. He's like, he's. And for him, I've interviewed him, I've videotaped him, I've talked to him, been a friend of his for quite some time. And to me, he's, he's not just a collector.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

It's. He's, he's at a different level in terms of you walking. It's almost, it's a different curation. Yeah, yeah. He, he was the one he pissed a lot of the California artists off. But that soup can show, he. You know, there's. It's almost like there's another side to that coin where if an artist does something that's say, like. Like, say, 62, and you walk into an artist's. Well, he didn't have a studio at a townhouse. And there on. Leaning against the wall, is a painting of a Soup can in 1962 or 61. Like, you know, this high. And there are several of them. They were all different flavors. You have to like, what you got me uptown. First of all, you.

[Interviewer 2]

It's insulting.

[Richard Prince]

It's. It's almost like, what are you.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

Why are you. Waste. Is. Is so.

[Interviewer 1]

It.

[Richard Prince]

The other side of that is someone reception. It's not a compliment. It's almost like it's. It's almost a way of completion.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

Because it wasn't. Yeah. There's the soup cans, and they're leaning against the wall. But it wasn't completed until Irving came along and decided, I want to show these.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

He had to have as big a perspective as Worl had to, you know, because he brought them to California. Not only did he show them, he showed them on a shelf.

[Interviewer 2]

It's a great idea. I didn't know that.

[Richard Prince]

Yeah. And he sold. The story that Irving tells is Dennis Hopper bought two. I thought he only bought one, but he. Irving said he bought two, and that was it. And Irving realized at the end of the show that they should all be together. He called up Dennis, who luckily, I got to meet just before he passed away.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

Called him up. Dennis agreed. And then Irving called Andy up and said, I want to buy them all. Would you take $60 a month for the next couple of.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

And Andy said that was like, that kind of money. That kind of terms.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

And that. That started his relationship with Warhol. And then the next show he did out was the Silver Elvises. Amazing. Which Warhol just sent out on a huge roll. And Irving says, oh, Andy, what am I supposed to. He says, oh, it just caught them up. That's why there's some. There's singles, some doubles and threes, because Irving cut them.

[Interviewer 2]

Unbelievable.

[Richard Prince]

I mean, stories like that.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

Make me feel so good about what I do and what I could possibly do.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

And to get back to that Time Life building.

[Interviewer 1]

Yes.

[Richard Prince]

What else I discovered long after I left was. Which is unbelievable, is that Warhol's empire. The film was shot from an office building in the Time Life building, which. Wow. And that was an overnight thing.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

Someone had to get. He had to have some kind of weird permission to get into that building. I wish I had known that at the time. I would have loved to gone to that office building, that office, and look out, like, where did they shoot that? Because for me, I've always said, I want to make a movie. People said, why didn't you make. I said, well, I'm not going to make a movie until I can make something as interesting as Empire. So, again, full circle now.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

I have made a movie. It's 6 hours and 47 minutes. It's called Deposition.

[Interviewer 2]

What's it of?

[Richard Prince]

It's my deposition from my.

[Interviewer 2]

For the Instagram case. I don't know anything about the lawsuit.

[Richard Prince]

Okay. So I got sued, but I.

[Interviewer 2]

By one of the two. Two of the people in the two.

[Richard Prince]

And I had already been sued. I had taken some pictures of Rastafarians and made them into paintings years ago. Bought a book of Rastas in St. Bart and. And lived with the book for three or four years and drew in it and cut it out and didn't pay any attention to the art. I didn't know who the author was. I didn't. I just liked the images. But I. He sued me, which in hindsight, yeah, he should have. I mean, I should have asked. I could have easily avoided, but I didn't think that way. I didn't think about asking permission. I never have. I just. I didn't think that's probably part of.

[Interviewer 2]

The asking permission is they could say no, and then you don't get to make your art, and that's no fun.

[Richard Prince]

Oh, I would have done that anyway, though. Even if they said no.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

It's like. It's like the building inspector.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

You know? But anyway, knowing what I knew from the first lawsuit.

[Interviewer 1]

Yes.

[Richard Prince]

I knew from the second that when you give a deposition, you get videoed. And so I knew. I'm not even sure if I can even. It's still cool to say stuff like this. I don't know. Because we settled finally. I had had it this past. It had taken a toll on me. Eight years.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

Takes a toll.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Interviewer 2]

It's no problem.

[Richard Prince]

Mentally, It's. It's horrible. But on the back of my mind, I said, I. I'm gonna have this video. Because when I went in, I knew I was going to be videoed.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

And I knew it was a bit of a performance. Yeah, I guess I can say that.

[Interviewer 2]

I think you can.

[Richard Prince]

You're supposed to tell, you know, I was tell. I did tell the truth, of course.

[Interviewer 2]

And you could tell the truth and.

[Richard Prince]

Do a performance that you're supposed to look straight at the videographer.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

You're not supposed to look left or right. That's what the lawyers say. And when the lawyer asks you a question, you answer. But at times, I would answer their question and take up to 15 minutes. And there came a point in the deposition where the lawyer stood up, screamed, would you tell your client to stop this talking? And then, of course, I shut down and just look straight in my deposition. And you hear them arguing.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

I like the idea you can walk in at any time if it's shown.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

And it's just me talking about art. Yeah, that's it. And I think as a movie, we're planning on showing it soon in Rome, of all place, in this little chapel.

[Interviewer 2]

Great.

[Richard Prince]

That a friend of mine. Do you know, when I think Easter, we were going to call it Deposition Row, because there's a mention. They were trolling me before I. I did something about Dylan and.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

And Desolation Row. And I said, deposition Row.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

I said, in a couple of days, I'm going to go and I'm going to be in deposition. And they wanted to know what I meant by that, so I started. But I think it's cleaner just to call it Deposition.

[Interviewer 2]

Both are good. Yeah, both are good.

[Richard Prince]

We'll see. I don't know. There was. There was talk. We were going to screen it at the Metrograph about a year ago. I. I decided. I don't know, I'd rather. I like the idea of doing it way first.

[Interviewer 2]

No, for sure.

[Richard Prince]

Way away.

[Interviewer 2]

Yes.

[Interviewer 1]

Yes.

[Richard Prince]

You know, on a little box.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Interviewer 2]

Great.

[Richard Prince]

You know, I think we've cleared all the legal hurdles because depositions are public. My first deposit, people publish them, you know, so. But I never saw that coming.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah, that.

[Richard Prince]

That's the other thing about. Where does this go? And so, yeah, I. I get to have a movie.

[Interviewer 2]

That's great.

[Richard Prince]

You know, finally. And people can stop asking me when I'm going to make a movie and. You know, because the idea of movie. Making a movie to me is so collaborative, and I don't think I could do that.

[Interviewer 2]

So how is it different when there's someone there? What do you think?

[Richard Prince]

Well, it's. It's a lot when someone is with me. The last time I had real assistance, I had a studio in Harlem. Had it for about seven years, just before COVID Hit. And the great thing about having it depends, obviously, what you're making.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

But I was making Paintings. And the great thing is you. You. You can make a mess and you don't have to clean it up. That's the advantage. And it sounds stupid, but it's really like. You don't have to, like, clean your own brushes and you don't have to. It's all prep work.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

You know, but. And my. My idea about making art has always been. It's. It's. I never wanted it to be a job. Once it becomes labor.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

I get so detached and bored and I want to move on to the next body of work or another process because I have no desire to. To work for a living, basically. I never have.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Interviewer 2]

Do you think you can get to the point where just having the ideas enough and you don't even have to make it.

[Richard Prince]

That too. You can, you know, file it away in your head.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

And live with it in your head.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

And that's an interesting point. Especially with our experiences and our lifetimes. I think because of the histories of what we've done, I think we can actually sort of do that now because I know that I. I've become more patient. I don't have to rush. I don't have to, like, make a painting. And you're right. Sometimes I'm just wondering where the line is, you know, where do you have to necessarily.

[Interviewer 2]

Why. To bring it into the world. It's still.

[Richard Prince]

It's still here.

[Interviewer 2]

It's still there.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

Yeah.

[Interviewer 2]

Interesting.

[Richard Prince]

Yeah.

[Interviewer 2]

I guess the benefit of bringing it into the world is that then you can share it with someone else. And I don't think there's any way to do it otherwise.

[Richard Prince]

Yeah. Or you can just share it with your one friend or. Or even share it with yourself just to, you know. I mean, I make a lot of things that I need to make just to see what they look like.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay.

[Richard Prince]

And then most of the time, for a long time now, I'm at least able to make things and put them away for years. Like the work that I'm showing in Mafa. I mean, it's been in the racks for maybe almost 15 years. And I. And I said, let's bring. You know, I have a. I have a winter. I call my winter studio upstate. I very rarely go up there anymore.

[Interviewer 2]

You used to live there pretty full time?

[Richard Prince]

No, I lived there full time. I left New York for a little while.

[Interviewer 2]

How many years?

[Richard Prince]

I left 95. And I met. I met up my wife up there, and we had kids and. And I. And I. I found it exotic. I found it strange. I'd Never been out of the city. Yeah, I found it bizarre.

[Interviewer 2]

Where'd you grow up?

[Richard Prince]

Well, I grew up outside of Boston in a suburb. I mean, you know, I came. It was funny too, because Panama is now in the. In the news and I was. That's where I was born. I was born in the canal.

[Interviewer 2]

How did it come up for you to be born in Panama?

[Richard Prince]

My father worked for the government. So did my mother.

[Interviewer 2]

What did they do? Do you know what they did?

[Richard Prince]

To tell you the truth, I knew my. I knew what my mother did. She work for the oss, which was pre CIA. Yeah, that she told me. But my father. I was never very close to them, but I was never very close to him. But he was a nice guy, but he was just. I never really knew what he did. Yeah, but that's how I came to be. He was stationed there, so we moved around.

[Interviewer 2]

You have brothers and sisters?

[Richard Prince]

I had a sister and Older or younger? A little older, A couple of years.

[Interviewer 2]

How's your relationship with her?

[Richard Prince]

I haven't talked to her in a long, long time. But she's very important to me because she introduced me to cultural things. At the time, she was a couple of years older than me and would introduce me to things that, you know, like say I was in the eighth grade, she was a sophomore in high school or something. And all of a sudden I'd get turned on to. But anyway, the. The upstate thing, I think it was for about. On and off for about seven years. And then we moved back. Yeah, I have a body shop where we make what I wanted to paint. I wanted to paint something that was already painted. I wanted to move on from the re photograph. And I always liked the way, certain way that cars were painted by teenagers where they would metal flake, stripe, put a flame. Mostly Bondo, they would put nine coats of. But they would leave the hood like completely bump. And I, and I would see that on the street and I said, that looks great.

[Interviewer 2]

Why is Bondo so good looking? What is it?

[Richard Prince]

It's just great.

[Interviewer 2]

Why?

[Richard Prince]

I don't know. It is.

[Interviewer 2]

It is and everyone knows it. It's like, why aren't all cars Bondo?

[Richard Prince]

Well, I set up a shop after I moved on from Time Life. I moved to California for a little while and I. And I discovered lifestyle magazines and you.

[Interviewer 2]

Know, like Sunset magazine.

[Richard Prince]

Well, like, you know, surf, biker, heavy metal even. It seemed like in these giant magazine stance. I was just mad for magazines after Life. I loved.

[Interviewer 2]

I love magazines too.

[Richard Prince]

But I noticed in the car magazines in the back There were advertisements for car parts or you could send away for a particular part. And I was very interested in the biggest part was the hood. At the time there was this company in California and, you know, for. For not so much money. And the idea that you could send away for it and would arrive in the mail. It's like saving up your box.

[Interviewer 2]

It's so funny.

[Richard Prince]

You could order a specific one.

[Interviewer 2]

Well, of course, because everyone else was buying it to fit the car they had.

[Richard Prince]

But I was buying it because it had a certain kind of like, subtext.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

Like the Dodge. A 1968 Dodge Challenger was in Bullitt. That's what the bad guys drove. Or a 1970 Dodge Challenger was in Vanishing Point. That's what Barry Newman drove. So even if nobody got the painting, the people who picked up the work, the shippers would. They would go crazy. They didn't know anything about art, but they knew about what a Challenger was. And I just love that.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

I just love the connection I made with that side of the art. Had nothing to do with painting at that point. It just had to do with. Yeah, they knew.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Interviewer 2]

The thing you chose to paint, it was almost like a secret language going on beneath the surface.

[Richard Prince]

It's the Mason handshake.

[Interviewer 2]

Insiders.

[Richard Prince]

Inside World.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

Which. Which is a. A publication I published once, this called Inside. It's just. It's just basically. Yeah. It's a way of, you know.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

Talking culturally about what you share and what you know and.

[Interviewer 2]

And you might not even know necessarily why something is cool, but you know it's cool. And you know, the other people who know it's cool know it's cool.

[Richard Prince]

And then they add on even something you didn't even know about. Yeah, that's cool.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

And so it's.

[Interviewer 2]

It's a whole additional conversation going on. Yeah, that's great.

[Richard Prince]

Yeah. I think it was two years ago, we had a show of the hoods. They never went over very well. People still didn't quite get them.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

But I started, you know, painting them at first with very specific car colors that came out of the factories. And again, just more non fiction as much as I could. And then I. Then when I moved upstate, I built a proper body shop, hired some real motorheads.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

And we went to town. So I'm just saying this idea of luck or juxtaposition or when you walk into the studio and something happens. Like we had basically had a junkyard at some point, you know, hundreds of cars. And one day I walked in and there were like There were these four doors that were leaning up against the wall, and I looked at them, I said, oh, that's the Doors. I said, don't throw those away. Let's weld them together in a row. And the Chevy Impala is going to be Jim. That's Jim Morrison. The other three, I'm not sure what car they came out of, but that day, walking into the studio, that kind of experience for me, is what it's all about. Okay, I got it that day.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

Right. And it was so.

[Interviewer 2]

But it's happening every day. It's always happening.

[Richard Prince]

It's. It's so dumb. It's so. It was so kind of like, not moronic, but for. For a couple of years, I've been walking around this stuff, and I never made the connection. Yeah, when do you make the connection?

[Interviewer 2]

When did you make the Jim Morrison connection? I don't understand that one myself.

[Richard Prince]

Well, I just, you know, it was just the four. You know, I looked at the four doors.

[Interviewer 2]

Oh, the four doors.

[Richard Prince]

And I call them the Doors. And I said, that's the piece.

[Interviewer 2]

I see. And it's the Doors.

[Richard Prince]

I. We welded them together. We did one going right, and we did one going left. And I started become. Then I got obsessed with Doors. But anyway, those are the kinds of things that wouldn't happen with me with the guitar.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

That obviously it happens with people who play the guitar.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Interviewer 2]

A discovery happens and. But a realization.

[Richard Prince]

Yeah. I mean, I. I know that I played in a band, the Glenn Bronco Band. Everybody played with Glenn Branca. Every artist I know, he would come over to your apartments. This is what you hit. One note. As long as you can do this.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

And he had, like, seven guitarists on the stage. And I remember one night we opened Irving Plaza.

[Interviewer 2]

Great.

[Richard Prince]

Laurie Anderson was on the bill. This was about maybe the fourth or fifth time I played in public with Glenn. Glenn was, you know, very serious. He really took his. You know, it was his way or the highway, you know. And I had brought along a friend who was a real rock and roller to fill out the guitar, you know. And that evening, something happened on stage where I looked at my rock and roller friend and he looked at me, and something was happening with the sound. And we both recognized. We came up, came off stage and said, should we tell Glenn what we just thought we heard? And I said, he doesn't want to hear that. He wants to be full of glass. He wants to be. You know, he wants to be taken seriously. He doesn't want any kind of, like, references to rock and roll or anything like that. But what was interesting, I just heard a new kind of rock and roll. Yeah, I thought. I thought.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

But I didn't want to say anything to him.

[Interviewer 2]

Do you remember the name of the piece? Because I want to see if we can find it.

[Richard Prince]

I don't remember the name. All I remember is that I quit that night because I couldn't talk to the guy. Because the next day who joins the band is Thurston Moore and Lee Ronaldo. And I've asked Lee. Hey, I know they probably didn't stay for so long, but they probably. They did hear something. And then of course they turned it into Sonic Youth. Yeah, I think that's what happened.

[Interviewer 2]

So Sonic Youth was an outgrowth of Glenn Bronte's band.

[Richard Prince]

I think that's probably my. You know. Because I was. Hang around with Kim.

[Interviewer 2]

Take a look, see if any of these songs look like the song.

[Richard Prince]

Just.

[Interviewer 2]

Cuz I'd love to listen to a.

[Richard Prince]

I. I haven't listened to Glenn in.

[Interviewer 2]

His records were put out by 99 Records. That was the way that I learned about the Ascension.

[Interviewer 1]

Let's listen.

[Richard Prince]

I. I think what. I think Lee and. And Thurston kind of came along. I feel it just grew out of that, you know. Is there a way of. Richard Prince Loud song?

[Interviewer 2]

Let's see.

[Richard Prince]

It's the only song I've put out in my life.

[Interviewer 1]

Let's see.

[Richard Prince]

This is the only song that I've ever done that I didn't like. Sam it. Sam Ra. Sa.

[Interviewer 2]

Tell me the story of that. How did that come to exist?

[Richard Prince]

I had a very strange interlude where I was. Do you know that guy named Jeff Eroff?

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

Okay.

[Interviewer 2]

No, well, kidding.

[Richard Prince]

Yeah, he's a really good friend of mine. He's great. Jeff. I. He gave me access to Warner Brothers publicity pictures when he knew I loved publicity pictures. I could just go through them and take what I wanted. But he also knew that I was kind of a wannabe songwriter. And my goal was to try to write a hit song that was stupid. And so he brought me out to California and he put me. Put me together with some of the session guys from the Beach Boys. And it was a complete nutty thing to do. You know, sometimes I would hear these melodies in my head, but I could. I could just. Again, I'd hit a wall. But anyway, I would go back to my bedroom. What I wanted to do was just record my own stuff in my bedroom on my own. So I set up. I had two cassettes, so. And I had A keyboard. And I would just play the keyboard and record it on one cassette. And then I would play what I had recorded on the cassette and play more keyboard, but recorded on the second cassette.

[Interviewer 2]

Great.

[Richard Prince]

And then I would just go back and forth.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

And I just. I came up with this thing and when I heard it, I just said, you know, that's, you know, that's it. This is 1985. I'm not going to do anything more. Yeah, I don't want to do anything more music. And I told Jeff that I'm not gonna. The stuff. Nothing's gonna ever happen. But I kept that. I always thought. I just thought it was loud.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Interviewer 2]

It also sounds spiritual. It sounds like maybe church music.

[Richard Prince]

Yeah. It just happened.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Interviewer 2]

Were you playing it loud in the room when you were playing it? Because it sounds loud.

[Richard Prince]

It sounds loud. Yeah, it does sound.

[Interviewer 2]

Maybe it has to do with the cassette recorder's compression or something.

[Richard Prince]

I have no idea. But I. It. It was all. It had always existed on a cassette. And, you know, and over the years, of course, I've met, you know, thousands of music, really well known musicians. I love speaking, you know, to musicians. And, you know, I've had, you know, the opportunity to actually sit down and they want to talk about art.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

You know, they don't want to talk about music.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

And everybody's an artist. But I, you know, that's fine. I'll look at, you know, whether it's Ronnie Wood or. Or Johnny Depp or, you know, Paul McCartney, you know, or, you know, Dylan. I think Dylan, to me is the more accomplished artist. I think I got a call one day from his manager. This is years ago. Would you want to meet. Bob wants to meet you. I said, what, are you. What are you nuts? Is this some sort of munch, Frank? He says, yeah, he's not. He wants to meet you. And I said, God, yeah, fine. So this short story was that he was playing at the Beacon, and as he does usually in the ISOs, he's out in New Jersey. You go to this stand at this motel out in Jersey. I said, all right, that's where I go. Yeah, that's where you go. And so I go out there and I pull into this, like, ratty old motel, and I go into the lobby and there's that one of his handlers there. And I figured, I'm going to go up to a room. He says, no, no, he's out in the parking lot. I said, oh, all right. We walk up in the parking lot and he's in an rv. That's where he's staying. And it's kind of like not a very nice looking. You know, it's just a regular beaten up. Which he drives. He loves to drive this.

[Interviewer 2]

Interesting.

[Richard Prince]

So, I mean, that in itself.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

Would knock me for a loop. And of course I'm nervous as hell.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

Right. Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan.

[Interviewer 2]

Of course. Scary.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

He wants to talk about these publicity pictures of all the work. I guess he had seen me. I had started working with publicity pictures in the mid-80s. But then really got into them in the late 90s and started collecting more and just organizing them like memorabilia. I love the way I would go into a memorabilia store and something would be elaborately framed and it would be a signature. And I just love the formalism of the pres. The presentation. You know, you would get this photograph that they would like, matte, double matte. But then they would like. They were selling the autograph.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

You know, and so I kind of wanted to mimic that. And I just had a. You know, it was just again, another journey, another body of work. I don't know where it would lead. I don't know.

[Interviewer 2]

Got you to Bob Dylan.

[Richard Prince]

But it got me a call from Dylan. And of course we sat there for like hours.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

And he was sort of like scoping out the idea of like what he did. Want to talk about the art world and how does it operate? I mean, he had shows of his paintings. And I wasn't aware of his paintings at the time, but I soon. Then I visited him again in California. And what I was very impressed was the gates that he makes these phenomenal. I just think the subject for Dylan, the idea. And he brought me to this. I think it was in Santa Monica, his studio. And all this iron work that he collects and he welds and he makes these gates. And I just thought, first of all, I looked at it and I said, that is great folk art.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

I really. And I just. It just the marriage that he made with the subject, the paintings. Okay. I wrote about the paintings. I wrote about the fact that it almost seemed like his studio. He was the term. I came up with witness protection. It had that vibe like he could just. If he needed to escape out the back door five seconds flat, he could. It wasn't an artist's studio. It was a strange looking studio. But the gate was really phenomenal. Then he did have a couple of shows. He had a couple of shows with Gagosian. And I helped out. I kind of helped. That didn't really help But I became friends with his manager, who I used to visit his offices and talk to him about the memorabilia that he was organizing, you know, and the painting. I just was knocked out that, you know, the original painting from Music from Big Pink and Self Portrait painting was there.

[Interviewer 1]

Wow.

[Interviewer 2]

You could photograph those.

[Richard Prince]

I. I have done many re. Photograph those variations of those two paintings. But I. I think, yeah, that's probably the idea of becoming friends or. Or at least not friends, but acquaintances with, you know, a musician like that, you know, like, I know that I've seen your. Your thing with Paul McCartney, and, you know, Paul and I get together, like, we get together at least once a year for the last. I don't know, or whatever. And. And it gets easier. You know, I get very. I get very nervous.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

Like, you know, he's a beat. You know, it's like I have this thing where it's like. But this past August, because he likes to come to the studio, he likes to see what's going on.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

Because he likes to paint. He was very good friends with de Kooning, who was one of my favorite artists, and we could really communicate on that level just visually. And, you know, he. I know that he just had his photograph shown that he took in 64. He showed him at Brooklyn. But this past visit was really interesting because he played me some of this new music that he was just fooling around with. And then, of course, then he split and went on this big tour. And I guess it's over now. But to have conversations with, I think with artists who. Who have, you know, their feet and maybe a couple of different worlds in the arts, you know, whether it's, you know, maybe they're making movies, but they're playing music, too, whether they're painting and, you know, I kind of like that.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

You know, because one is usually experimental for the most part, one is really solid is what they do for a living. But it's nice to share the studio experience with. With a musician.

[Interviewer 2]

Different than sharing it with an artist.

[Richard Prince]

I think so, yeah. Yeah. They're looking at it in ways in which another artist. You know, when I get together with someone like Christopher or something like, I. I just went to his. He had a show downtown on Wall street recently. Took over a floor, an abandoned office floor, and put his work up. And it was really successful. You know, whether it was the windows looking out, the textures, the. The leftover, the wires hanging from the ceiling, and it all figured into the work. It was an, you know, you created an environment or he took over an existing environment. And I've done this before. And he's known about that.

[Interviewer 2]

There was the first house.

[Richard Prince]

First house I did out in LA was a tear down. We were able to lease it for three months. That was an incredibly fun. And I met a lot of artists who, because I stayed for three months in LA to do the project and it wasn't in a gallery, you know, I treated the house like a domestic environment.

[Interviewer 2]

How did you get the idea to do that?

[Richard Prince]

I just like the idea of showing work in a domestic with furniture. With the idea of showing, you know, hanging a work in a kid's bedroom.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

The idea of having outdoor space like a garage or a driveway or park a car.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

And then tearing the house apart. And then sheetrock. I loved sheetrock. Like. Like Bondo.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

You know, for some reason, when I love the idea of sheetrocking, taping. But don't paint it. Leave the tape.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

I've done three houses, so I did second house, which was up near my property, but that was actually bought by the Guggenheim. The whole place.

[Interviewer 2]

Amazing.

[Richard Prince]

All the hood. There were all hoods in that house. And then it got hit by lightning and burned up.

[Interviewer 2]

What are the odds?

[Richard Prince]

What are the odds? But it was like a gift.

[Interviewer 2]

But the house was existing.

[Richard Prince]

House was existing in a field of grass. It was abandoned and I'd been driving by it for years. It was just a simple ranch house, but it was floated in a sea of grass. And I said, I'd love to do something with that house one day. Yeah, one day I saw it was for sale. Perfect. The son, I guess the dad had passed away, bought the house and I just started doing my thing, you know.

[Interviewer 2]

Did you put any works in it or you worked with what was there?

[Richard Prince]

I, I worked with the rooms and I worked what was going on. The outside didn't really change the. The shape. I didn't change the way you got up to the house, the driveway. I didn't mow the lawn. I parked a car on and put it on cinder blocks because everybody has gold cars in there. I basically did what I was introduced to when I went first went upstate. Because when I went upstate, as I said, I didn't really know what it was like to live in the country. But I soon realized, yeah, there's a basketball hoop in almost everybody's yard. There are these tire planters and I mean, there was all these kinds of things that I just started treating people's yards as a page in a magazine. I started photographing people's yards and what was in the yards. And then I got my own yard, that house. And I treated the house as an upstate.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

And I decided. I put a lot of different things in before I decided let's just do hoods. And then I don't know what happened. I'm not sure why it was sold to the Guggenheim. I'm not sure why they bought it, but they did. I think they were trying to go through all the legal things to get it access. So they had to part. You know, they had to deal with parking handicap. Well, they never got to that stage because they removed all the hoods except one, which was mine. And then my painting, which I did not sell them as part of what I call my Sid Vicious painting, which was this thing I had bought it. A sex pistol, almost kind of like a. A shawl. Some cheap fabric that I bought at a flea market. And I stretched it and I painted everybody out except Sid. I just thought, you know, I liked Sid. I don't know. I like. I loved his version of my way.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

I mean that to me was just. Just phenomenal. And I finally. And I did eventually meet Mike McLaren who was a real character. But that burned when the light. I got a call house. Yeah. I mean what. But luckily the only thing in the. Was the Sid and my hood. Which was no big deal because I could just repair it. And then I left it there. And I think we renegotiated where I bought the house back from the. In some weird deal for like a dollar or something. And it's the house since now. Well, there's very little there. The car's still there.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

The 78. Beautiful view. Not sure what to do with the property.

[Interviewer 2]

Maybe the ruin is the most interesting thing it could be. It's like going to Rome.

[Richard Prince]

It might be. And it's all been, you know, fairly documented. Yeah, there's been a. I published a book called Second House. I mean. And that's the thing about books is they have a way of hanging around. You publish 300 copies. I mean, I have my own publishing company and we publish, you know, 300 copies and we give them away. You know, we just give them a couple of book, you know, really interesting bookstores who like the books.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Interviewer 2]

When did you start doing that? The publishing?

[Richard Prince]

A while ago. It's this company called Fulton Rider. And I just decided I. I've never been interested in this idea of the. The catalog resonate kind of. I just don't see how that's going to be possible with me. I know people have Tried it and people are trying to do it right now.

[Interviewer 2]

You just make too much stuff.

[Richard Prince]

Well, I just don't see how you're going to organize it. Yeah, I mean, you know, unless you want like 25 volt. I mean, I make bodies of work and I always have.

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[Richard Prince]

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[Interviewer 2]

Do you think of yourself as a curator.

[Richard Prince]

Upstate? I've curated a bunch of building. I've built buildings over the past 30 years. It's almost like a little village now. It's almost a mini marfa. What I'm planning to do is I want to do a show called Collection where I've taken other artists work and I've paid homage to them. So in that sense there's a bit of curating going on. I don't have a space for that show yet and I don't know when I want to do that show. And I know what I've done with the homages is like for the Warhol. It was, to me it was an interesting Warhol because it belonged to Alice Cooper. It was one of the electric chairs, which of course is interesting because. Yeah, and we did a trade and so all I did was I, I did a zine on the, the whole thing. Him owning it. Shep is in there, his, his manager. And then every, every electric chair that's supposedly out there because there was some kind of question about this one. But I don't care. It's Alice Cooper and he, I believe he got it from Warhol.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

So that is part of the curating. If you were going to say yes, because that's my idea of paying homage. And then I have a Pollock where it's a photograph of him by very well known photographer. But I. I bought a. A canceled check from Pollock made out to the irs. But it has a signature. So that's Pollock, then. De Kooning I bought one day. I was talking to this. Do you know the Minutian Gallery?

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

He's a strange guy. Anyway, he. He kind of was courting me for a while and. But I love his space on the Upper east side. I live like four doors down from his gallery. It's a beautiful space. Does fantastic shows. Very focused on what I like to focus on, the type of art. So I was up there, he was talking, he wanted to do a show with me, but I just. I wasn't sure I could do something, work with him. But I'm sitting in his office and he has one of the ugliest de Kooning drawings I've ever seen in my life. Great body, but the face looked like someone drew it, you know, like after. And I said, what's, you know, it's tall, it's big. What's the story with this drawing? Well, I don't know. I said how much I knew exactly. I wanted to buy it. And then I wanted to do. I wanted to reproduce the paper, the image, and then I wanted to put my own face in like 15 of them and line them up. So that's the de Kooning. But. So you. But when you buy these.

[Interviewer 2]

Yeah, you could do whatever you want.

[Richard Prince]

You. You buy the real one.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

And my. You buy the Warhol. You have the war. And my zine.

[Interviewer 1]

Yes.

[Richard Prince]

And then I got a Picasso from 1948 and I riffed on that. And you buy the. All 10, but you also get. At least you get the Picasso. Yeah, that's great. So the idea is like, I'm going to curate. I. I would say I'm more of a collector.

[Interviewer 2]

Tell me everything you collect.

[Richard Prince]

I collect books. I started, you know, collecting paperbacks in.

[Interviewer 2]

The East Village based on the covers.

[Richard Prince]

Or mostly the beats. I started with, you know, Kerouac and that kind of stuff. And I just learned more. I became friends with people who sold first editions and, you know, I just haunted and hung out. And then I met other book collectors and I learned. And I went to the antiquarian book fairs and, you know, years and years of just studying and knowing what was going on. And because I. I didn't start to read until very late. I was very dyslexic. I didn't read until I was, like, 22. But when I started, it flipped. I just started being able to read.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

And I just started reading, like, everything but art. Sometimes I go through periods where I go kind of crazy and I buy a lot of art. You know, the problem now is we're trying to set up a foundation in terms of collecting my own. My friends. I'll. Now I'll call them up. I say, hey, where do. Where would you like your art to go? Let's say it's the Institute of Chicago or Mocha Out. It's not as easy as you think. You can't donate.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

You know, it's a whole process. It's. It's a bit of a. It's a little defeating. You know, you call them up and you say, hey, I've got.

[Interviewer 2]

You know, it's also not what you want to spend your time doing.

[Richard Prince]

Not at all. But it's. I think it's. It's. It's better than, you know, certainly better than selling. But it wasn't making art that really turned me on the most when I was like, 19 or something. I just come back from this European humanities thing, which I never attended. It was just part of this thing that I went around to all the museums on Europe, and I would draw the.

[Interviewer 2]

How did you get to go on that?

[Richard Prince]

I was at some stupid school that I was avoiding the draft. It was like an alternative hippie school up in Maine. Doesn't even exist. It was like. And every loser and person couldn't take an sat, got, you know, sent there and. But they had a humanities course, which was. They would. You would go to France. And I sure, I'll go. But I never went to class. I just hung out and, you know, I would get on a train. I went to museums all by myself and, you know. But I came back from that trip. No. And there was a little carriage house with a little art department at that school. And there was this guy there. He was my only art teacher. And. But what really turned me on was going to his house when I was 19. He had real art on the wall. And that. I think that experience actually was incredibly profound for me because I had never been to a house that had real, you know, he had etchings, he had aqua tents, he had drypoint, he had painting, had drawings, you know, anywhere, like a drypoint. Matisse to America, Sott Aquitaine to this guy named William Bailey, who was a fantastic draftsman and painter from. Taught for years at Yale. This guy Walt Kuhn, who is well known for Painting Circus. He also put together the Armory. He was one of the three curators that put together the. The Armory show in Where'd your shop? And.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

And he was the guy who always told me, don't settle on any one thing right now.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

Don't try to create a style like all the artists that are around our neighborhood in Maine who are trying to get shows and sell their work and. Because in those days it was. You were in Wyeth Country. I mean, I mean, I'm a huge. Why I love Andrew Wyeth. Huge fan. But, you know, there's a lot of other things out there.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Interviewer 2]

Was it your path?

[Richard Prince]

You know, so. And then go to New York, you know, at least check it out.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

You know.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

And find out what's good advice going on. And that was difficult.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

I didn't want to leave again. I didn't want to leave that bubble. And I was having a great time up in Maine.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

Hanging out with older, you know, working artists.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

Going to figure drawing class. I love that.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

But the start's really not that different from a lot of other. You know, I think it was getting to New York that the idea of walking down the street in the middle of the afternoon on West Broadway back then in 74 and being able to pop in to a gallery, you know, one it's free, you know, doesn't cost anything. Not having to make an appointment, not having to make a plan. Maybe you just went to the bodega to get a sandwich. Oh, I'll just walk in and I see this Art Povera show that I don't. I don't really know much about. Or I see a Vito Acconci, who I later become very good friends with. Like, I can't believe I'm friends with this guy years later. But, you know, in 1974, to see. Go to Sonnebad or Castelli or, you know, it's just not making art. It's. It's. It's the whole.

[Interviewer 2]

It's like a community or.

[Richard Prince]

And then bumping in to another artist and saying, well, let's grab a coffee and just talk. I think that's for me. I know it's not for a lot of artists, but for me, that's part of the work.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

You know, I loved coming out to la and I used to have shows right away in la. Little, you know, in hotels and crazy weird places in la. But the problem with LA is that you just couldn't walk. There's no walking down the street and bumpy.

[Interviewer 2]

You don't run into.

[Richard Prince]

No, no. You want to go see John Baldasar, you got to go all the way to Venice and make an appointment, talk to the guy or whatever. There was no spontaneity that way. And I'm not sure what artists, if that's part of their routine these days.

[Interviewer 2]

I know a lot of musicians like that. That sort of the camaraderie of fellow travelers.

[Richard Prince]

Yeah.

[Interviewer 2]

Because if you don't do it, it's a different conversation.

[Richard Prince]

Absolutely.

[Interviewer 2]

You know, unless you're doing it. It's like speaking another language.

[Richard Prince]

I think you also break through.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

To places where you wouldn't ordinarily.

[Interviewer 2]

Absolutely.

[Richard Prince]

Maybe you'd get there much later.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

I mean, I was in Laurel Canyon in 1967. I missed it, though.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

I was there.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

And I didn't have the wherewithal to stay.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

I don't know what would have happened. I was there outside the Whiskey when the Doors were playing.

[Interviewer 1]

Wow.

[Richard Prince]

I was. I had just gotten out of high school. I was visiting my sister. But that community of musicians up in the hills and them. I mean. I mean, I. I love those doc. Those docks.

[Interviewer 2]

That's a great time in music.

[Richard Prince]

Then them talking about hanging out. I mean, the stories. That kind of time must have been a little bit what I think that I experienced in the early days of soho.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

You know, I got there just in time. I mean, it was almost over as soon as I got there. The real estate thing, I mean, it just went.

[Interviewer 2]

But I was also the luck. You happened to go. You had a guy who told you to go. You listened, you went. You thought you'd go for three months.

[Richard Prince]

Yeah.

[Interviewer 2]

And you found it.

[Richard Prince]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Interviewer 2]

And you persisted through years of rejection.

[Richard Prince]

Well, I thrived.

[Interviewer 2]

Years, yes.

[Richard Prince]

But I learned to. I really thought after a while, if the work wasn't rejected, then I'm. I mean, I don't know. It's not like I wanted to be rejected.

[Interviewer 1]

No.

[Interviewer 2]

But being hated is better than nobody caring. Well, there's an emotion.

[Richard Prince]

There's. When you get. Yeah, it's better to have that extreme. Either extreme love or, you know, this guy is just wrong.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

I don't know. I still have a very narrow definition or idea of what an artist is.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

Especially these days.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

And it's probably not the correct one, but I still think an artist is essentially an antisocial creature who basically just is in a room doing something by themselves, and their audience doesn't really have one at the moment of the making or and probably won't for a while.

[Interviewer 2]

Yeah, it's not about them.

[Richard Prince]

No.

[Interviewer 2]

I read a review, one of your shows. The reviewer finished looking at the show and said, I wish I was dead.

[Richard Prince]

God, I. You know, I love. I actually, sometimes I used to collect. It's fantastic, you know, and I'm not sure if I've heard that one.

[Interviewer 2]

Yeah, I wish I was dead.

[Richard Prince]

Wow. Please kill me.

[Interviewer 2]

It's unbelievable.

[Richard Prince]

Yeah. Well, I don't know what's next, but it's.

[Interviewer 2]

She's excited about making art now. As you've ever been.

[Richard Prince]

Yeah. You know, it's all I do.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

It's all I think about. I don't. I don't really do anything else, and I never have. I mean, like, for instance, this is the first time I've actually sat and talked to anybody about what we're talking about in a long, long time. I mean, I. You know, I gave up giving interviews and talking to the press and whatever for a while ago. You know, I don't know, I just felt. This time I felt com. I mean, I thought I'd feel comfortable because you're an artist, you know, and I think I feel more comfortable about. Around people who are creative.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

Because they get it.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Richard Prince]

I mean, it's. Even if explaining stuff, I mean, you get it. You know what it's like. You know, you have to make these decisions, and, you know, some of the decisions are made not by you, but for you. They're just. They're made kind of automatically. And it's like. Like. It's not like magic. I don't know what the word is.

[Interviewer 2]

Would you say it's like it's revealed to you?

[Richard Prince]

Revealed, yeah. Something. Something is definitely. But I think it's recognition. You're able to receive it, whereas most of the population, all that got taken away from them by probably around age six. Somehow the artist. Something didn't get removed. Somehow, you know, something happened very young.

[Interviewer 2]

Tetragrammaton is a podcast.

[Richard Prince]

Tetragrammatin is a website. Tetragrammaton is a whole world of knowledge.

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Tetragrammatin. Ancient wisdom for a new age. Upon entering, experience the artwork of the day. Take a breath and see where you are drawn.