Childhood Obsessions
Richard Prince – Cowboys – At the Gagosian Gallery Beverly Hills
Frozen with one hand on my camera and the other in my left pocket, ready to draw my iPhone at any sign of movement, I stared down my opponent. Time contracted, I realized where I was, and could relax. I came to grips with the fact that I was standing in the picture perfect front room of the Beverly Hills chapter of the Gagosian Gallery, and not the dusty porch of an 1870’s Wild West saloon. I understood that the man I thought I was having a shootout with, was, well not really a man and more of a painting of sorts. I won’t lie, before that afternoon I knew nothing of Richard Prince, the artist whose work I was currently in an altercation with, other than Chris’ view he was a great artist, and what simple knowledge his website provided before attending his Cowboy paintings exhibit. In person, his work was powerful and gripped my imagination – enough that I was transplanted back into my father’s cowboy boots, running around the Boulder foothills pretending to be Billy the Kid.
Richard Prince is not only a fantastic artist, he is a man that wields childhood obsessions with a paint brush, creating work that brings the observer back to a state of mind of playing cowboys in the backyard. Prince's powerful and striking paintings evoke a sense of lost freedom through bright Cowboys riding noble horses across grand and majestic landscapes. Looking intently, I think his ability to mix color to bring depth to his pieces is at the core of his success.
The closer one gets, the more impressive the work becomes. Colors mixing together manifesting in uncharted shades, repetition of patterns to create textures one could only describe as dream like. Richard Prince is well, a Prince of painting, an artist with royal ambition who creates work that left me speechless for the entirety of my stay in the gallery, though to be fair I came alone and didn’t have anyone in particular to talk to
As I tried to leave, outside walking away from the Gallery, the pull of his work was still strong, and I had to take one last look.
This exhibit was worth every minute, and left me in an ambitious and one might say cowboy like attitude for days, leading me to make one brash decision after another, and in retrospect they were all on point. I highly recommend seeing this, and with only eight days left until it closes, you better giddyup.
