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Rene Ricard
Rene Ricard Red Blue Nasty, 1989 poetry painting Keith Haring reference

1989

$15,000
£11,278.79
€13,097.41
CA$20,947.18
A$23,231.98
CHF 12,200.30
MX$285,305.22
NOK 154,444.17
SEK 145,642.92
DKK 97,721.10
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About the Item

Frustration is center stage, written in cursive: "It's one of those days nothing works out right -- bump into any sharp corner – can’t tell flesh from white or brown from…or green from…" (Could "Red Blue Nasty" be a reference to his friend fellow New York artist Keith Haring, who created the Story of Red and Blue series of prints in 1989?) At the lower edge the artist wrote “Night Book”, recalling the image of the artist’s constant nocturnal outings through the city. Red Blue Nasty 1989 Acrylic, paint marker, oilstick over silkscreen ground on paper 44 x 29.5 in / 111.8 x 75 cm Signed and dated ‘Rene Ricard aug 14 ’89’ White wood frame As an author, Ricard's increasing use of text in his work over the 1980's reflects his interest in the written word. His 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's signature in looping cursive dominates the lower right corner, 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 (formerly 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", and close friend William Rand called the artist “the Baudelaire of Avenue C…a brilliant, elusive and glamorous underground figure.” 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.
  • Creator:
    Rene Ricard (1946 - 2014, American)
  • Creation Year:
    1989
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 44 in (111.76 cm)Width: 29.5 in (74.93 cm)Depth: 1.5 in (3.81 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
    Condition is good, as exhibited with some frame wear. Frame is the original hand-selected by the artist for his 1990 exhibition Mal de Fin at Petersburg Gallery.
  • Gallery Location:
    New York, NY
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU1211214014672

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Whore by Rene Ricard pink and silver painting with poetry
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A fluid wash of bubblegum pink fills the surface of this painting. Ricard has written in bright yellow, blue, and vivid silver the following: So how do you be friends w/a whore? Business being business/Ethically, a ho can’t rat on its tricks; so if the ho is hohoing yr husband Damned if you’ll ever find out. March 26. Whore sharply contrasts the beauty of silver, yellow, and pink with Rene’s pithy, obscene pronouncement. The pink ground is applied in a sheer wash, like Male Cinderella’s background, and the artist’s cursive shimmers in the same silver as One Shoe One You / True Love, Size 3?, and This is not a thanksgiving pumpkin. While Whore shares enticing formal qualities with other works in this group, the text snaps us to cold reality, down into the gutter with a bump. Ricard is happy to visit a fairy tale, but doesn’t stays in the fantasy for long. There’s an intimacy to this work’s smaller scale which compels the viewer to lean in and decode Ricard’s poetry. The artist’s outsized signature is with initials in dark blue, which pop out against that beautiful saturated pink. Canvas floater frame, in maple with .25 inch moulding. Whore is part of a group of works dating from 1989-1990 as Rene Ricard prepared for Mal de Fin at the Petersburg Gallery, New York, in 1990, his very first one-man exhibition. Born Albert Napoleon Ricard, he 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. In New York Ricard found the milieu where he would shine. He acted in underground films, playing Warhol in the artist’s own Andy Warhol Story. He became a renowned poet and writer, published in the Paris Review and Artforum. In typically wry fashion he explained how he became a painter: “I began adding images [to my poetry] because I’ve always liked to draw and paint. And it was hard to find junk-store paintings of the right quality, things that could support some writing, so I just started making the images myself. Unfortunately, people really like that, even though I far prefer just the writing.” Ricard drew on his vast knowledge of literature and art history, weaving these references together with bursts of autobiographical poetry: what the New York Times termed his “seething verbal finesse.” Ricard, having spent years in the Factory’s milieu, learned from Warhol’s creative strategies. Warhol created images quickly with screen printing, with no regard for perfection. Duplication was the method and the ideology. Ricard, too, worked quickly: urgency was part of his visual language of looped cursive and scribbled colors. He often borrowed a lithographic plate or silkscreen from already-completed works, printing the matrix on canvas or paper to create backgrounds for new works (Size 3’s red printed background may be an example of this). He appropriated thrifted paintings and discarded items such as a pinboard or a piece of insulation, so long as the object in question had a flat surface upon which to work. The two artists were both outsiders to the art world in a sense—Warhol coming from the world of design and Ricard, a bona fide author, but both intuitively understanding how to compel the viewer. As Warhol anthologized consumerism, Ricard catalogued desire. For example, Size 3 and One Shoe One You feature Ricard’s take on Warhol’s famous shoe drawings...
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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 abstract painted composition, Ricard combines expressive poetry with vibrant color. A bright yellow forms the background for two rounded rectangles printed...
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