Richard Prince Four Cowboys

Four of Richard Prince’s Cowboy prints are reproduced in brilliant colour at the centre of this large-scale publication. The double spreads of luminous American landscapes are re-photographed, cropped and re-appropriated images of original Marlboro Country iconography. For Gordon Burn, in his accompanying essay, Prince presents a new way of reading these images. He examines how the artist has deconstructed the efforts of lighting, costume and make-up used in the production of hyper-masculine cowboys. Burn dissects the implications of nostalgia for a commodified, advertised Americana and discusses prince’s interest in multiplicity and the uncanny.