Blasting Mats
September 10 — October 30, 2021
New York: 21st Street
Blasting mats, for those unfamiliar, are heavy-duty mats stitched together from pieces of car tire, devised to catch flyrock from controlled explosions. Fifteen years ago, Richard Prince started making work from disused blasting mats, suspending them from customized frames at his studio in Rensselaerville. A trio of these sculptures, Untitled (Blasting Mats) (2006) are transposed to a gallery for the first time. They hang, slumped and heavy, from metal I-beams, structures with unforgiving, murderous associations.
Installation
Work
About
Richard Prince (b. 1949, Panama Canal Zone) lives and works in New York State. Prince’s work has been the subject of major solo exhibitions, including “SAME MAN,” Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humblebæk, Denmark (2022); “Portraits,” Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Michigan (2019); “Richard Prince - Works from the Astrup Fearnley Collection,” Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo (2018); “Cowboys: Selected Works from the Collection,” Espace Culturel Louis Vuitton, Beijing (2018); “Untitled (Cowboy),” Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California (2017); “It’s a Free Concert,” Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria (2014); “Prince/Picasso,” Picasso Museum, Barcelona (2012); “American Prayer,” Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris (2011); “American Prayer,” Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris (2011); “The Early Works,” Neuberger Museum of Art, New York (2007); Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2007, traveled to Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and Serpentine Gallery, London, through 2008); “Canaries in the Coal Mine,” Astrup Fearnley Museum, Oslo (2006); “American Dream, Collecting Richard Prince for 27 Years,” Rubell Family Collection, Miami (2004); Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Basel, Switzerland (2001, traveled to Kunsthalle Zurich, Switzerland; and Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany); “Upstate,” MAK Center for Art and Architecture, Schindler House, Los Angeles (2000); “4x4,” MAK Center for Art and Architecture, Vienna (2000); Museum Haus Lange / Museum Haus Esters, Germany (1997); Haus der Kunst / Süddeutsche Zeitung, Munich (1996); “Fotos, Schilderijen, Objecten,” Museum Boymans–Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (1993); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California (1993); and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1992). Prince’s works are in the public collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas; Museum of Fine Arts Collection, Boston; Museum of Modern Art, New York; and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
