American Prayer is a Richard Prince exhibition, staged at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Well-known for his cow boy photographs illustrating Marlboro advertising campaigns and his series of nurse paintings, the artist is the best at depicting the American fin de siècle. This was the first monographic exhibition on Richard Prince organised in Paris.

In collaboration with David Adjaye, the exhibition focused on a feature of Prince’s personality never presented before. The artist is a passionate booklover and a collector of American pop culture and countercultures from the 50s’ to the 80s’. This artistic movement has inspired his work as photographer and painter. Thanks to a musical background – including works by Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Bob Dylan and the Velvet Underground – Richard Prince portrays an American continent scoffing at its myths, introduced in a beat, hippie or punk context. Paintings, drawings, photographs, artists’ books, manuscripts and objects illustrate the artist’s personal universe between high and low culture in both America and Europe. The exhibition ended with a reading room, designed by David Adjaye, with walls that have been covered with fake books conceived by Richard Prince and treasures rarely presented before.