In his retrospective, Spiritual America, now on view at the Guggenheim, Richard Prince treats Frank Lloyd Wright's rotunda like the world's largest muscle car garage.  His sculpture, American Prayer, built into a resin base, looks like a high school kid getting his ride ready for the summer cruising season.

American Prayer, 2007 from Richard Prince: Spiritual America, Guggenheim Museum 2007


Spanning work from the past three decades, Prince appropriates images from advertisements and popular culture--he's partial to the Marlboro Man, New Yorker cartoons and fetching nurses from pulp novels.  He also collects hoods from cars that he paints and hangs right on the wall, like vivid minimalist monuments.  Prince doesn't forget the ladies, however, witness the appropriated photograph, Girlfriend, of a biker chick in a leopard print outfit, sitting on a motorcycle like she means business.   

Point Courage, 1989

Untitled (girlfriend), 1993

--David Coggins