What's What

Richard Prince is obsessed with a particular brand of American cultural vernacular, appropriating material from advertisements, magazines, pulp fiction, and most recently Instagram. His work has garnered notoriety for flouting traditional notions of intellectual property. Symbols of masculinity representing virility and independence, such as cowboys and muscle cars, have been touchstones for his paintings and sculpture over the last three decades. What’s What sits on the wall like a painting, yet it derives its form and materiality from the automobile. Instead of treating the surface as an illusionistic space of representation, Prince shapes and paints it like a patched-up, unfinished car hood.