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Brillo across my heart

Rene Ricard

Petersburg Press United States

Artwork details

Artist

Rene Ricard

Title

Brillo across my heart

Description

Brillo across my heart 1989

Oil paint on metal cabinet

24 x 21 in. / 61 x 53 cm | Frame 26 x 23 in. / 66 x 58 cm

Signed Rene Ricard in paint lower right

‘Brillo’…across my heart / Baby powder in my lungs / Band aids across my eyes / Bacitracin ointment on my tongue / Brush my teeth with hydrocortisone creme / How your love soothes

A tender love poem laced with acid: Brillo pads are used as a filter when smoking crack cocaine. We are left to wonder which option is a panacea: the touch of a lover, or the salve of chemical relief. Ricard loved a visual pun–this viscerally commanding piece is painted on the back of a found medicine cabinet.

Date

1989

Medium

Oil on Canvas

Signature

Signed

Sheet

24 x 21 in. inches

Status

Sold

The Artist

Rene Ricard

In the 1980s, he wrote a series of influential essays for Artforum magazine. Having achieved stature in the art world by successfully launching the career of painter Julian Schnabel, Ricard helped bring Jean-Michel Basquiat to fame. In December 1981 he published the first major article on Basquiat, entitled “The Radiant Child,” in Artforum. Ricard also contributed art essays to numerous gallery and exhibition catalogs. Ricard was immortalized by Basquiat in the drawing entitled Rene Ricard / Axe, representing the tension that existed between the two. Andy Warhol called him “the George Sanders of the Lower East Side, the Rex Reed of the art world.”