art

Richard Prince Has Thoughts on Bob Dylan’s Paintings

Richard Prince, painter, photographer, and rephotographer, went to Bob Dylan’s painting studio this past winter and wrote about it for the New York Review of Books. It’s a good read! Prince is to the point on Dylan’s paintings (the ones that remind some people of other paintings). “I think Dylan’s paintings are good paintings,†Prince writes. “They’re workmanlike and they do their job. They’re not trying to be something they’re not.†But he’s killer on Dylan’s studio: “I think it was Dylan’s studio. I’m still not sure. It didn’t look like any artist’s studio I’d ever been in. It was on the second floor and was around five hundred square feet and furnished with furniture that looked like it had been found on the street. There was a small Casio keyboard on a keyboard stand. There was a store-bought easel and a carton of art supplies on the floor. The carton was one of those plastic containers the USPS holds mail in … Except for the art supplies, there wasn’t a single thing in this room that would tell someone, ‘Art is made here.’ It was kind of astounding. It was like Dylan was painting in a witness protection program.†[NYRB]

Richard Prince Has Thoughts on Bob Dylan’s Paintings