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Rene RicardThe Unhappily Dead: Rene Ricard poetry of 1980s Chelse New York life rainbow1989
1989
About the Item
Touched by the influence of Andy Warhol, champion of a young Jean-Michel Basquiat, Rene Ricard served as enfant terrible of the 1980s New York art scene. In this rainbow print, Ricard effortlessly traverses text and the pleasure of color. The vibrant sunset colors and inky-black shading of this large, folded, print are hidden at first glance by the cover page. Composed like the cover of a book, the demure composition features a pale green oval rimmed with lilac purple. The artist's name and the title, "The Unhappily Dead", are printed in black typewriter font. Turning this "page" reveals a double fold, blank on the left, and on the right, black cursive, printed over a colorful gradient that fades from sky blue, to light purple, to a medium orange. Below this color field is printed the top edge of a lithographic stone, shaded in black and scratched away in areas like an ancient stone wall.
Ricard wrote the work's title, "The Unhappily Dead", at the top of the composition, and below it, a poem in cursive reading: "Suddenly cabs don't stop for you / Your job gets lost you end up living off your friends / If they see you. You're always hungry and keep losing weight. You / Move into a room in a huge / Bldg in Chelsea. It takes / An Eternity to realize you are in Hell / RR"
The tranquil colors of the gradient are at odds with the somber tone of the poem, and the arc of the black marks around the text suggests a gravestone. The black layer is printed to reveal the shape of the stone on which Ricard would have drawn this composition. The heavy, flat limestone slabs traditionally used to print lithographs further recall the shape and weight of a gravestone -- a tongue-in-cheek reference typical of Ricard's work. The lithography stone as medium and as visual motif is a recurrent theme in his prints. Here, the artist's black shading reveals the natural chipping on the side of the stone. Scratches and scribbling form a rich texture that enhances the emotional intensity of Ricard's frenzied cursive.
Ricard was a poet and an art critic who published numerous books of his poetry, and his increasing use of text in his work over the 1980's reflects this interest in the written word. Ricard's confessional hand-painted and hand-written poetry is almost always accompanied by the artist's outsized signature, integrated into the composition, or placed at its center. Here, Ricard signs his initials in the plate, and again on the paper in a flourish of red pencil, displaying the artist's unabashed confidence and flamboyance.
This confidence (and Ricard's bedroom-eyed allure) attracted the attention of Andy Warhol, and the young Rene (born Albert Napoleon Ricard) became his protege. He would appear in three Warhol films, even playing the Factory founder himself in "Andy Warhol Story". Warhol would later call the famously acid-tongued Ricard "The George Sanders of the Lower East Side, the Rex Reed of the art world."
By the early 1980s, Rene Ricard was a fixture in the New York art scene, not only as an accomplished artist, but as a critic. Penning enlightening and poetic essays for Artforum, he turned his attention to rising stars such as Julian Schnabel and Alex Katz. Ricard famously wrote the first major article on Jean-Michel Basquiat. “The Radiant Child” is credited with launching Basquiat’s career, and is considered a seminal contemporary art essay.
Paper 31 in. x 47 in. / 79 cm. x 120 cm. folded to 31 in. x 23.5 in. x 79 cm. x 60 cm. Lithograph and etching on Arches paper. Edition 28: this impression 28/28. Signed by the artist in red pencil lower right; numbered 28/28 in black crayon lower left.
- Creator:Rene Ricard (1946 - 2014, American)
- Creation Year:1989
- Dimensions:Height: 31 in (78.74 cm)Width: 47 in (119.38 cm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:This print is not previously owned and has been stored in the archives of the publisher since its publication.
- Gallery Location:New York, NY
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU121124901552
Rene Ricard
Born Albert Napoleon, artist Rene Ricard moved to New York in the 1960s at the age of 18. With that relocation, Albert died, and Rene was born. Instantly adopted into Andy Warhol’s glittering orbit, Ricard thrived in the city, with its heady concentration of art, culture, and debauchery. He acted in underground films, playing Warhol in the artist’s own Andy Warhol Story, and was lauded by the New York Times in 1981 as “splendid” for his turn in the independent film Underground USA. He was a renowned art writer who launched the careers of artist like Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring with his poetic essays. In New York, Ricard found the center of his life. In his memoir “Rene Ricard” painter and close friend William Rand calls the artist “the Baudelaire of Avenue C…a brilliant, elusive and glamorous underground figure” adding that Rene’s stomping ground, the East Village, was a “…Halloween show all year round: squatters…hustlers, freaks…” Ricard could be found at any given time of day or night walking these streets, linking up with an endless stream of friends and acquaintances. The city’s underbelly was a bustling hub of culture: one could find artists, critics, gallerists and poets such as Nan Goldin, Julian Schnabel, Francesco Clemente, Bill Stelling, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Allen Ginsburg mingling in the same gritty milieu. Like the rapidly-changing city, Rene's life was in flux: he moved between living situations and struggled intermittently with addiction, leaving a trail of makeshift canvases and alternately bleak, tender, and acerbic poetry. He had gained prominence and fame as an art critic and poet throughout the 1960s and 70s, but his nascent painting career took shape after gaining the attention of the Petersburg Press Gallery. They were to present his first exhibition in New York in 1990. The upcoming show proved to be a motivating force, harnessing Ricard's raw talent by providing him with studio assistants and a place to work at Petersburg’s studio on Lafayette Street. The show was to be entitled “Mal de Fin”. French for "Bad End", Mal de Fin may be a play on "fin de siècle": the end of an era and the beginning of another, and "mal du siècle": sickness of the century, a phrase attributed to the 18th/19th century French writer François-René de Chateaubriand. Chateaubriand’s notion of turn-of-the-century ennui no doubt resonated with the famously moody artist, and Ricard’s name change may have been inspired by Chateaubriand’s first name François-René. Mal de Fin’s body of work reflected not only his wild lifestyle, but the artist’s interest in spirituality, literature, and art itself.
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