COWBOY by Richard Prince

A collection of works by American artist Richard Prince.

This book was published as the culmination of Prince's 40-year research project on the "cowboy" as a symbol of America.

In the mid-1970s, Prince, who was aiming to become a painter, was working at TIME, scraping articles for magazine writers. When he removed the articles from the magazines, he was left with only a large number of advertisements that glamorously portrayed objects of desire, such as products and models. The author took photographs of these advertisements, cropped and enlarged them freely, and began selling them as his own work. Of particular interest was the cowboy motif that often appears in advertisements for Marlboro cigarettes. After that, the author's work shook the art world. He was sued many times, and there was no shortage of topics, such as breaking the record for the successful bid price of modern photography. The author's obsession with cowboys remains the same even in an era when Instagram is used as a major medium. Even with a new series of 80s and 90s TIME magazine adaptations using the latest technology, the cowboy motif advertising is less original, appropriation, and more credible than ever. is shown.

(partial excerpt from distributor commentary)

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Title: COWBOY
Artist: Richard Prince
PRESTEL PUBLISHING, 2020
Softcover, 230 x 305 mm
484 pages
First edition
¥9,800 + tax