From February 10 to June 16, 2024, the Georgia Museum of Art will host the exhibition “Richard Prince: Tell It All.”
Source: Georgia Museum of Art · Image: Richard Prince, “Tell Me Everything (Inside)” (detail) · © Richard Prince
“Tell Me Everything” featuring artist A collection of Richard Prince's latest works based on the joke records of the influential 20th century American comedian Milton Berle. (1913 – 2000). Berle, whose career spanned more than 80 years, frequently recorded jokes on index cards, which he organized by topic in file drawers. Prince, an avid book and rare manuscript collector, purchased four cabinets containing thousands of Berle's jokes at a Los Angeles auction. Although viewers do not have access to individual jokes, the enlarged inkjet images developed from this archive reference the centrality and ongoing importance of jokes in conveying ideas about everyday life, taboo subjects and wider cultural norms.
In the 1980s, Prince began to reapply old jokes to his work, utilizing handwritten jokes and later creating large monochromatic canvases with silkscreens of individual jokes on the surface. The exhibition title was inspired by a joke he first encountered in his used bookstore.I went to see a psychiatrist. He said, ‘Tell me everything.’ I did, and now he's playing me.“The exhibition planning is Shawnya HarrisLarry D. and Brenda A. Thompson Curator of African American and African Diaspora Art.