THE NORTH RIDING PROJECT

I’d been re-photographing images for ten years. Beginning the jokes was like starting over. I didn’t know what I was doing. At the time sculptors were casting sculptures in bronze, making huge paintings, talking about prices and clothes and cars and spending vast amounts of money. So I wrote jokes on little pieces of paper and sold them for $10 each. I had a hard time selling them. One dealer bought two and asked for a 10% discount. So I decided that every six months I’d double the price. All this was possible because no one was looking at my work. That’s a fairly good position sometimes. You can get away with a lot of things.

Richard Prince in Morgan/Butler