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“RICHARD PRINCE: New Portraits” Photo by Rob McKeever

One can say that artist Richard Prince’s “New Portraits” series tries to invoke a “Warholian” statement of how we see and idolize ourselves today through selfies and so on. Just doing that would not have bothered me so much; although, it’s still pretty lazy screen grabbing pictures of famous artists, porn stars, and a number of anonymous “hot chicks,” and then blowing them up to create a high resolution print — inkjet on canvas, 65 3/4 x 48 3/4 inches (167 x 123.8 cm), to be more specific. However, eight months after these portraits were put on display at the Gagosian Gallery in New York City, these same pieces were sold for thousands of dollars at this year’s Frieze Art Fair over the weekend. Many (or none) of the subjects were even aware of this until it was too late.

One such portrait that caught our attention features the CEO of Lime Crime Cosmetics Doe Deere posing with Pidgin Doll. I should note that the picture you see below is still available for free on Doe Deere’s Instagram page:

pidgin doll and doe deere

Oh, it gets better… It seems that Prince added his own messages into some of the artworks to (maybe) further whatever commentary he was trying to make. “Let’s hook up next week. Lunch, Smiles,” Prince posts underneath a picture of a voluptuous Pamela Anderson. “Enjoyed the ride today. Let’s do it again. Richard,” underneath a picture of young singer-songwriter Sky Ferreira sitting in the passenger seat of a red sports car.

RAAAAAAGE!

Just a few hours after opening the festival doors for a VIP preview, the Gagosian gallery claims that nearly every single “original” piece of Prince’s work was sold. The only one left was of two men kissing. I can only guess it was added to break up the monotony of hot ladies pursing their “come hither” lips, a theme that dominated most of the series. That particular piece is reportedly priced at $90,000. WHAT? Who is spending upwards to $90,000 for a cut and paste blow-up print of someone else’s work?!

Another photographer, Peter Coulson actually identifies one of his own pieces in the image above:

peter-coulson-photography

“Possible cogent responses to the show include naughty delight and sincere abhorrence,” said Peter Schjeldahl of The New Yorker. “My own was something like a wish to be dead—which, say what you want about it, is the surest defense against assaults of postmodernist attitude.” That’s an eloquent way of saying, “This is a piece of crap. I don’t want to live on this planet anymore.” I think. Those people at the New Yorker sure have a wider vocabulary range than I do.

I’m all for art and making statements, and whatnot, but geez! The least Prince could do was make each person aware of what he was doing, or get their permission. The Terms and Services on Instagram does have a long way of saying that they can use people’s images for advertising purposes, in the broadest sense of the term. So it’s not totally unheard of to just go straight to Instagram and make a deal with them somehow. It may not be totally illegal, but it sure is a dick move. But what do I know, I’m not a copyright lawyer. Feel free to correct me.

Here’s just some of what Instagram says in the Terms to which we’ve all agreed:

1. Instagram does not claim ownership of any Content that you post on or through the Service. Instead, you hereby grant to Instagram a non-exclusive, fully paid and royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable, worldwide license to use the Content that you post on or through the Service, subject to the Service’s Privacy Policy […] including but not limited to sections 3 (“Sharing of Your Information”), 4 (“How We Store Your Information”), and 5 (“Your Choices About Your Information”). You can choose who can view your Content and activities, including your photos, as described in the Privacy Policy.

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“RICHARD PRINCE: New Portraits” Photo by Rob McKeever

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“RICHARD PRINCE: New Portraits” Photo by Rob McKeever

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“RICHARD PRINCE: New Portraits” Photo by Rob McKeever

(Pictures provided by Gagosian, Pidgin Doll)

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Christina E. Janke

Christina is the co-host of “Intro to Geek” on Shauncastic and Editor-in-Chief at Agents of Geek. Her love of all things Mass Effect knows no bounds. She also carries an obsession with comic books, video games, and quirky television shows. Her heroes are Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and Gail Simone. She hopes to be just like them when she grows up.