Mana Contemporary, the art storage facility and exhibition space in New Jersey, has staged a tiny fair in Miami’s Wynwood this year and if you’re in the neighborhood you should stop by, if only to visit the VIP room. There you will find a previously unseen series by Richard Prince.
The works all date to around 2008 and resemble dirtier John Baldessaris: pop culture images (in this case some noir-ish, comic book-y erotica) with large shapes blocking out crucial parts. Passages from dirty novels, or dirty poems, hover over some of the works, which are silkscreen and collage over illustrations.
The 14 works are for sale as a single piece, for $1.1 million. The seller bought them from the studio around the time they were made and now wants to part ways with them.
“Larry knows,” said the guy behind the front desk who explained all this, referring to Prince’s dealer Larry Gagosian. “Larry knows about them, and he knows they’re here. So it’s fine. He won’t kill us.”