The Rhetoric of the Image Task 4

Untitled (Cowboy), 1989
Richard Prince (American, born 1949)
Chromogenic print

Richard Prince's images were created for advertising, the main focus of his attention was the Marlboro Man cigarette advertising campaign. This very influential campaign became famous for its macho imagery of the all-American cowboy. These advertisements idolise the rugged nature of this all-American cowboy set against the roughed and untamed landscape of the American west.

Richard Prince
Untitled (Cowboys).
Ektacolor print.

Prince's technique was to take photographs of previous advertisements, inside the magazine or on billboards. He'd then set about reframing the Ad by cropping the image with the aim of creating a more ambiguous meaning. His aim was to get the viewer to reconsider what is real and what isn't. 
Prince obviously realised the power and influence of the advertising industry and in particular the macho idolised all-American man of the Marlboro campaign.


He hoped to to identify were the ad stopped and the man began, separating the perceived reality of the ad campaign of a unattainable ideal, of how smoking the Marlboro brand would make you tougher, more rugged just like the surrounding American west.


By re-shooting the advertisements he changes the intention of the ad's creators; within the act of re-shooting, he weakens their shameless and impossible ideology and equally importantly the power of the photography in which the ad was set. By removing the wide landscape of the ad he reduces its connotations of the great outdoors. 
He creates new meaning forcing the viewer to reconsider the original intention of the ad and all its connotations of personified machoism into something much more subtle, but just as powerful, he raises the question of just how powerful and remote are the dreams sold to us within these extremely influential campaigns.