Left: Jim Krantz; Right: Richard Prince23
Here Prince has re-photographed and re-proportioned an image from an advertisement for Marlboro cigarettes. Much like the work of Sherrie Levine, there is very little that the artist Richard Prince has done to alter the original work. The questions of originality and authorship continually surround Prince and his work. When asked to comment about his ‘borrowings’ for an article in the New York Times, he declined to comment, stating only: “I never associated advertisements with having an author.”24
The discourse and attention surrounding the concept of appropriation is so extensive that we must consider it an art form. One of Richard Prince’s Marlboro appropriation photographs sold at Christies for $1.2 million in 2005, setting a new record for appropriation art.25 Art of all genres has something that makes us think, or evokes a feeling – any feeling, in it’s viewer. Whilst some may consider appropriation as copying or forgery, it is clear that the controversial art form has now gained recognition worthy of a contemporary art practice.