We read, in the Art Newspaper (right HERE), that the Richard Prince works currently on view at London’s public Serpentine Gallery are for sale.

Richard Prince, “Untitled,” 1983. Image: zine.artcal.net

According to the article, this raises “questions about the relationship between publicly-funded galleries and their sponsors.”

Actually, since the Serpentine is not involved in any sales from the show, it raises more relevant questions about the power of commercial dealers in today’s art world. Naturally it behooves both dealers if their clients are able to purchase works complete with lofty provenance - that is, the Serpentine’s seal of approval.

Dealer Sadie Coles. Image: avantguide.com

Dealer Larry Gagosian. Image: artmagazine.arcadja.it

It takes the risk out of purchasing an artwork - especially if this idea were to spread to less established artists - if a public gallery is seen to have ‘authorized’ it.

Richard Prince, Untitled cowboy 1993. Image: hit.ac.il

Should we be surprised by this development at a time when one of London’s hottest commercial galleries has been purchased by an auction house? (Click HERE for that article)

But wait a moment.

If the exhibition is co-curated by the artist (which, in this case it is), then doesn’t that dilute the authority of the public institution? If this trend were to continue, where would the bar for quality be set?

This type of collaboration may mark a moment in the art world where curators are erasing their very relevance within the art scene.

What purpose does a publicly funded art institution play? Particularly in a country, like Canada, where government funding of the arts is increasingly in peril?

There’s a good interview with Mr. Prince in Bomb magazine, HERE, and New Yorker critic Peter Schjeldahl blasts the artist in his review from 2007, entitled The Joker, is HERE.

Schjeldahl says “(Prince’s) bald rip-offs of painting styles from Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Ed Ruscha, and, lately, Willem de Kooning make him an artist as irreverent art critic, razzing exalted reputations…”

VoCA wonders if Mr. Prince isn’t now ripping off bad-boy artist Damien Hirst in the way he seems to be attempting to manipulate his own market?