Untitled

Eight jokes of the old king-of-the-one-liner variety face the viewer with a sobriety that gives new meaning to the word 'deadpan.' The present work comprises eight of Prince's favourite gags from his famous and celebrated Joke Paintings. In them, Prince uses old jokes of the Jackie Mason, Bob Hope, Henny Goodman, Rodney Dangerfield variety. Most of them were a little jaded by the time Prince appropriated them, just as his photographs often showed a world just out of date and no longer quite fashionable. The jokes tend to be more worthy of a groan than a laugh. Yet it is precisely this type of reaction that Prince seeks in his art. By forcing us to read the lines, a natural mental reflex, he is manipulating us. By groaning or giggling at the contents, he has us exactly where he wants us. He has managed to distil the purpose of art-as-entertainment into a few concise words. He manages to invoke more emotion in his viewers than many epic historical narrative paintings. He has dismantled the mechanics of painting, of representation and of art itself in order to make the viewer ponder the nature, and also the purpose, of art.

The deadpan delivery throws the artistic and mental processes into high relief. The understated, deadpan appearance of the canvases is so unassuming that Prince wrongfoots the viewer while throwing the contents to the fore: "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" (Richard Prince, quoted in R. Rian, Interview, pp. 6-24, and in R. Brooks, J. Rian & L. Sante, (eds.), Richard Prince, London 2003, p. 20).