'Yea Yea Yea' at Harper's Books

On Saturday evening, I wandered into the independent bookstore/art gallery Harper's Books for the opening of Richard Prince's latest curatorial project: a retrospective of the short-lived artistic career of Stuart Sutcliffe, one of the original (and best-looking) Beatles. He and John Lennon became buddies at Liverpool College of Art; at Lennon’s urging, Sutcliffe sold a painting to buy himself a bass guitar and join the band. During the Beatles' 1960-62 Hamburg tour, Stu dropped them to pursue his higher calling, art. He died tragically of an aneurysm at age 21, but not without being an instrumental force in the band's development, from its look to its name.

Sutcliffe's works and tragically short life inhabit the intimate space that is Harper’s Books. (So too does the work of Richard Prince, whose own legacy is not to be overlooked.) Prince pools together remnants from the Stuart Sutcliffe archive, which includes his academic work and portfolios, photographs, and letters. They provide backstory to his abstract paintings, investigations in line, color, and space characterized by geometrical forms that seem to create their own rhythm within the tactile layers of thick impasto. The nuanced collaged works on paper are abstract but contain traces of the human figure and feature German newspaper clippings along with other media.

This look into an often neglected modern artist (this is his first exhibition on U.S. soil in over ten years), orchestrated by one of the most important artists of our time, is worth the trip out of the city. As Prince writes, "How do you talk about an artist who died just as he was getting ready. Who was already there. (Not on his way but arrived.)"

Through October 14, 2013.

HARPER'S BOOKS
87 Newtown Lane
East Hampton, NY 11937
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