Bob Dylan at the Gagosian of Beverly Hills: the Richard Prince exhibition reinventing an icon

On February 27, the Gagosian of Beverly Hills inaugurates Bob Dylan, an exhibition by Richard Prince who presents a triptych of large format paintings dedicated to the iconic songwriter.

The exhibition arrives in a moment of renewed attention to Dylan, thanks to the exit of the biopic in Complete Unknown (2024) directed by James Mangold and Oscar candidate. With these works, Prince offers a visual interpretation of the Nobel Prize musician, reflecting on the lasting impact of his image in contemporary culture.

The three canvases, each of over three meters per side, make up the Untitled (Dylan) (2014) work and resume a detail of the famous portrait of Jerry Schatzberg, used by John Berg for the cover of Blonde on Blonde (1966). Seventh studio album of Dylan, the album is known for its fusion between musical experimentation and modernist lyrics and is considered one of the biggest ever. The original photograph, taken in the Meatpacking District of Manhattan, portrays Dylan with a dark suede jacket and a checkered scarf, a look fixed on the lens. Prince re -elaborates the black and white image, accentuating the blur and subtracting further details.

Prince's approach reflects his interest in “re-photography”, a technique adopted since 1977 to appropriate existing images and deconstruct the authority. In Untitled (Dylan), the artist amplifies the instability effect already present in the snap of Schatzberg – caused, according to legend, from the tremor due to the cold – making each panel progressively more blurred through the use of jet prints of ink. This strategy recalls Gerhard Richter's photographic painting, but relies entirely to digital processes.

The critical distance that Prince imposes on Dylan's image recalls the tension between personal involvement and analytical detachment. If on the one hand the artist recognizes the cultural and emotional weight of the original, on the other hand it crosses it with a patina of visual noise that alters its perception. An operation that could evoke the controversial passage of Dylan to the electric during the Newport Folk Festival of 1965. Literary and pop excited collector, Prince has numerous objects related to Dylan's career, as well as materials of the Woodstock Festival of 1969 which They inspired his other monumental works. In a comment from 2011, the artist showed his admiration for Dylan's pictorial production, underlining its stylistic coherence and creative dedication.

A single Untitled panel (Dylan) had already been exhibited in the It's a free concert exhibition at the Kunsthaus Bregenz in Austria in 2014, where Prince had explored the visual universe of rock legends such as Jimi Hendrix and Doo-Wop groups of the 1950s. The title of the exhibition recalled the countercultural inheritance of those years, underlining the profound link between visual art and popular music, which finds new life in its interpretation of Bob Dylan today.