Richard Prince: Early Photography 1977-87

An exhibition of Richard Prince’s early photographs opening at the Grosvenor Hill and Davies Street galleries.

The exhibition features many of Prince’s iconic cowboy, girlfriend, and advertisement photographs, some of which have not previously been exhibited in the city. The Davies Street gallery hosts work solely from Entertainers (1982–83), while the gallery at Grosvenor Hill features works from several other series.

Collecting, chronicling, and repurposing examples of discomfiting mainstream humour alongside images from a variety of mass media, Prince chronicles the intersection of America’s vernaculars and subcultures in the construction of its national identity. In 1977, he began using a process of “rephotography” to appropriate shots from advertising and lifestyle press, redefining the concepts of authorship and originality—an approach he would later extend to include social media. A conscious elision of the aims and techniques of traditional picture-making, the technique allows Prince to redirect the authority of a visual referent. “When you put an already existing image in front of a camera,” he explains, “you know what you’re going to get. You’ve taken out the decisive moment.”

Also on view at Davies Street Gallery 5 October – 16 November 2023