[Rick Prol] Shady Salesman #2 (Black Cat for Sale) 4

“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] 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