New Paintings

An artist’s book of “social science fiction” presenting new work and writing by Richard Prince.

Richard Prince (born 1949) continues his revival of the Fulton Ryder imprint with an artist’s book that is both a monograph of new artworks and an expansive written statement on art history, personal biography and the contemporary impulse to create self-images. At first glance, the New Paintings are in a similar vein as Prince’s New Portraits. However, unlike that series, the New Paintings focuses on portraits of painters painting on Instagram, very often with back to the camera, facing away from the viewer. The resulting images are ambiguously manipulated; the series is self-described as an act of “social science fiction.” The image captions, integral to the artwork, contain a dense “Bird Talk” text, including ambiguous autobiography and art history commentary.

Joan Katz offers some explanation in a comment found in a New Painting, stating: “Deep Nostalgia. Legitimate Doubts. Safeguards to prevent misuse. Digital imitation. Resemblance without manipulations. Skilled impersonations. Staged illusions. Imitation of Life (the sequel). It’s difficult to know if it’s new or just another resurrection. #post_place.”