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Lot Essay
Untitled (Fireman and Drunk) is a strong example of one of Richard Prince's long standing series of Joke Paintings. Entwining text, graphic imagery and painterly gesture, Untitled: Fireman and Drunk appropriates the messages of several schools of art history: Minimalism, Expressionism and Pop art, to create a work that gently tests our conventional understanding of the highly traditional medium of painting, while also reflecting wryly upon contemporary culture. Prince made his first foray into comedy in 1985, when he began sketching cartoons from The New Yorker and Playboy. Yet he quickly dropped the image to concentrate on the punch line, adopting well-worn jokes into his individualistic paintings. The text in this work is taken from a repertoire of jokes that Prince has used in his work for over two decades. The Jokes mark a dramatic break from Prince's body of work that focused on advertising images, but they encapsulate the same interest in mass culture and cultural appropriation.
The text is integral to the work; we read it as we look, although no causal relationship can be discerned between the constituent parts. The importance of spontaneity and transience in the appreciation of a joke contrasts strangely with the normally lengthy and contemplative way in which we are meant to view art, and it is in this paradox that the painting's power lies. 'The subject comes first. Then the medium I guess', Prince has explained. 'Like the jokes. They needed a traditional medium. Stretchers, canvas, paint. The most traditional. Nothing fancy or clever or loud. The subject was already that. So the medium had to cut into the craziness. Make it more normal. Normalize the subject. Normality as the next special effect.' (R. Prince, quoted in R. Brooks et. al., Richard Prince, London 2003, p. 20).
The text is integral to the work; we read it as we look, although no causal relationship can be discerned between the constituent parts. The importance of spontaneity and transience in the appreciation of a joke contrasts strangely with the normally lengthy and contemplative way in which we are meant to view art, and it is in this paradox that the painting's power lies. 'The subject comes first. Then the medium I guess', Prince has explained. 'Like the jokes. They needed a traditional medium. Stretchers, canvas, paint. The most traditional. Nothing fancy or clever or loud. The subject was already that. So the medium had to cut into the craziness. Make it more normal. Normalize the subject. Normality as the next special effect.' (R. Prince, quoted in R. Brooks et. al., Richard Prince, London 2003, p. 20).