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Rene Ricard at his edgiest – entitled Cross Dressing, this abstract painting’s scribbled text describes Jesus Christ’s crucifixion garb as a form of gender-bending. A fiery haze of yellow crowns the artist’s poem against a swath of fleshy pink. Written in blue oil stick, pen and raspberry red paint: “Cross Dressing / 3 spikes / a loin cloth / and a simple crown of thorns. Rene Ricard, dec 12 1989”
Oil stick, acrylic and ink
Paper 40 x 26.5 in. /101 x 67.31 cm
White finished poplar frame 45 x 33.5 x 2 in. / 114.3 x 85 x 5 cm
with 2 in. moulding.
Signed “Rene Ricard dec 12 1989” in pencil lower center.
Ricard was a poet and art critic who published numerous books of poetry, and his increasing use of text in his work over the 1980’s reflects this interest in the written word. Ricard’s confessional poetry is often handwritten over spontaneous drawings. Ricard’s confidence (and his bedroom-eyed allure) attracted the attention of Andy Warhol, and the young Rene (formerly Albert Napoleon Ricard) became his protege. He would appear in three Warhol films, even playing the Factory founder himself in “Andy Warhol Story”. Warhol would later call the famously acid-tongued Ricard “The George Sanders of the Lower East Side, the Rex Reed of the art world.”
By the early 1980s, Rene Ricard was a fixture in the New York art scene, not only as an accomplished artist, but as a critic. Penning enlightening and poetic essays for Artforum, he turned his attention to rising stars such as Julian Schnabel and Alex Katz. Ricard famously wrote the first major article on Jean-Michel Basquiat. “The Radiant Child” is credited with launching Basquiat’s career, and is considered a seminal contemporary art essay.
