Richard Prince
It’s a Free Concert
July 19–October 5, 2014
Kunsthaus Bregenz
Karl-Tizian-Platz
6900 Bregenz
Austria
www.kunsthaus-bregenz.at
There are countless texts, books, and exhibition catalogues about Richard Prince (b. 1949) as well as texts he has authored for his own publications and those of other artists. Gaining any overview of his exhibition activities is a challenge. Nevertheless, though his work has been widely shown, Richard Prince remains an enigmatic artist. Even though his artistic approaches remain opaque, his Cowboys, Nurses, and Jokes are renowned within contemporary art. Richard Prince first came to attention at the end of the 1970s for re-photographing advertisements. Fashionable lifestyles pervade the artist’s early photographic works. A decade later his Marlboro Cowboys achieved cult status and were amongst the highlights of the group exhibition That’s the Way We Do It at Kunsthaus Bregenz in 2011.
American popular culture and social milieus have provided his work’s predominant imagery, encompassing painting, photography, sculpture, and installation. These include various subcultures such as rockers and their Girlfriends.
Amongst his most popular paintings are the Jokes and Cartoons, in which jokes are screen-printed on canvas. Prince has conceived his exhibition It’s a Free Concert especially for Kunsthaus Bregenz. Many works on display will be receiving exposure to a wider public for the first time. The title is a leitmotif permeating the whole display. Associations to popular and subculture, rock and pop stars such as Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, and so-called doo-wop bands from the 1950s are omnipresent. Rock’s transcending of conventions also shines through in the small-scale works, where Prince has adorned advertising photos for pornographic films with labeling stickers for DVDs.
Along with sex and pop music, the car is an additional site in the exhibition of the American dream of freedom. In his examination of his native culture, Prince succeeds in transferring its complex power to works of art. Merely by means of the titles of his car works such as Elvis or The Doors, he manages to loop music and street culture.
This first large-scale solo exhibition by Richard Prince in an Austrian institution demonstrates both the range of his approach and its conceptual strengths. An accompanying catalogue will be published on the occasion of the exhibition. Edited by Yilmaz Dziewior, with essays by Paul Black, Yilmaz Dziewior, Richard Prince, and Kerstin Stakemeier.
KUB Arena
Summer Festival
Of Becoming and Being
A week of films, music, and live performance
July 29–August 3
As is the custom, for one week during the summer the KUB Arena will abandon the Kunsthaus for Karl-Tizian-Platz. The courtyard will be transformed into a social space for entertainment, experimentation, and exchange conceived by artist Julian Göthe. His interventions and transformations will be a platform for the KUB Arena Summer Festival Of Becoming and Being.
This year will highlight a wide range of filmmakers, artists, musicians, and performers. The summer cinema will screen new and rarely shown films by young filmmakers from around the world that have already received great acclaim. Wild Combination is New York filmmaker Matt Wolf’s portrait of the avant-garde composer, singer-songwriter, cellist, and disco producer Arthur Russell. Before his untimely death from Aids in 1992, Russell was a prolific creator of music. Over two decades after this death, his music is still influential on musicians and artists alike. Internationally renowned musicians such as Verity Susman of Electrelane and Joel Gibb will be interpreting Arthur Russell’s music in a concert after the screening. Wolf’s most recent film Teenage is a collage of archival material showing the genesis of youth culture from the end of the 19th century through to the end of the Second World War.
The KUB Arena Summer Festival will offer a diverse program of film, music, and live performance, as well as the opportunity to meet the performers during events. For further information please go to
www.kunsthaus-bregenz.at.
