Within the abandoned alleys of Rick Prol’s ongoing “Empty City” series, Shady Salesmen slink and slouch in the darkness, prowling for suckers. But buyer beware! The items sold are nearly as strange as the creatures that sell them: Cats (dead or alive), a broken guitar, Pepsi-Cola or Coca-Cola… the choices not as real as they appear.
The two characters present in “Shady Salesman” are both victims and victimizers, a continuation of a theme present in Rick Prol’s “Empty City” series began in 1985 and previously digitized by Orangehare. By revisiting them now, Rick Prol explores the illusion of choice present in our current times, which can be interpreted many ways, and begs the question: If someone’s selling, then who’s buying? Do we have a choice?
“Hey! You! Yeah you! Lookin’ to buy something special? No no, we’re all out of cats, no cats for sale. What happened to the cats you say? None of your business!
But I DO have a lovely guitar here…. Good eye! It IS broken! But believe me, it once played BEAUTIFULLY! Anyway, I’ll give you a great deal on this guitar… just name your price….”
My father, a concert Classical Guitarist, instilled in me a love for the classical guitar from a young age. However, in these works, the guitar is intentionally broken, symbolizing a shattered communication system akin to the broken aspects of government and human endeavors. Despite the bleak undertones, a playful and dark humor injects a certain levity into the narrative.
“Black cat for sale! Last one! Good deal! Is it alive? Who cares! It’s the LAST ONE! What am I doing with a pot? None of your business! Get this black cat while it lasts… or until I go hungry…..”
In this scenario, the cats become a commodity, sold dead or alive, symbolizing the people or the spirit of the people. Both salesmen are victims and victimizers in their own way, a necessary element for the survival of the system. The purple figure, more feminine, possesses a pot for cooking, implying a grim form of cannibalism may be coming if no sale is made. On the other hand, the orange figure, more masculine, has none left…
Rick Prol was born and raised in New York City where he currently lives and works. He attended Cooper Union College in 1980 and began showing his work publicly in 1982, during the then burgeoning East Village art scene. As art artic Eleanor Heartney writes, “The East Village art scene of the 80`s thrived on the romance of slumming in an era of widespread economic prosperity. Rick Prol was an icon of that era, known for his cartoonish tableaux of mayhem, murder and suicide set in a rat-infested world somewhere east of First Avenue” (Art in America, 1993)
Prol`s work exemplified and helped define with “anarchical impudence” the more dangerous and harrowing aspects of urban reality with images both horrific and absurd, but always with a touch of humor. Rick Prol currently has two solo exhibitions at Leeahn Gallery in Seoul and Deagu, Korea. And In 2022, he had a solo exhibition at the James Fuentes Gallery in New York.
Instagram: @rickprol
