It’s great to be talking to you. How does it feel to be paired with Richard Prince?

I’m very fortunate. Richard is a king. He’s built his fortune over 30 years. The first time they contacted me to say, “Would you be interested in doing the two-person show with Richard at the Prada Foundation in Venice?” I was like, “I think you should be asking Richard. I’m not the one you should be asking.”

How did you come to know him?

I know Richard through Barbara Gladstone, whom I loved dearly. I miss her so much. She talked to me about Richard a lot in the beginning because I guess I had a little bit of lament that my art-world traction came so late in my career. I was like, “Oh, I could have done this, I could have done that.” And she used to always tell me, “Look, AJ, I’ve seen every version of this. And it’s always better to be a little later than a little early. It’s just always better.” And she would always use Richard as the best example of that. She was like, “His peers all became millionaires, when he was not one. And he had a little chip on his shoulder about that.” But, you know, when you look at that group, outside of maybe Jeff Koons, he certainly has had the longest run. There are a lot of really good artists who are not artists for the ages, but Richard is definitely one that people will be talking about forever.

It’s like with the new Marcel Duchamp show at MoMA. Who knows if he’s the greatest artist of the 20th century, but there’s no dispute he’s the most interesting artist of the 20th century. This is someone people are still thinking about. As opposed to, say, Pablo Picasso, where it’s like, as great as he is, give him the trophy and send him home. You know what I mean? Nobody’s denying that he’s great, or perhaps the greatest, but there are other artists who people are still trying to digest, still chewing on.

When your thing jumped off in 1910, 1920—it’s incredible that people are still thinking so hard about Duchamp. And I think Richard is, to me, one of the few artists who has risen to the challenge of, What the fuck is on the other side of Duchamp? Once you do the urinal, what’s on the other side of that? That’s what everyone's trying to figure out. Critics might say Richard is just about appropriation, but he’s one of the people who’s really run with it.

How do you make a thing when you don’t make anything? That’s a really profound, almost philosophical question, especially in the world of scarcity, fabricated scarcity, overpopulation, eco-disaster, all these kinds of things. I think Richard explored it more powerfully than anybody. I love Sherrie Levine, that’s amazing work, but it just doesn’t exist without Richard’s work. She would be the first person to say that, too, to the consternation of many feminists, which I understand. But she literally called him up and said, “Is it all right if I did this?” Because her practice was so… derived from his insights, let’s say.

Well, that reminds me of something else Nancy Spector said about that first meeting. She said you described Richard as “the blackest artist you know.”

That’s kind of a joke. I did this interview with the Louisiana Museum where I repeated, “He’s about the blackest artist I know, because he just steals and steals and steals,” which he loved. He sent me a note and said, “I owe you one for that.” It’s like he’s a master burglar. And you learn from him, but you don’t necessarily steal the same shit he steals. This is very, very, very complicated, because this is where the culture part comes in, you know? He might be stealing diamonds, and you’re stealing dookie chains, or whatever.

I’ve said it multiple times: I don’t think anybody would confuse my work with Richard’s work, but there is an overlap. The overlap is pretty straightforward. He’s interested in the working class—what I would call outlaw, not high culture stuff—in the stuff that he appropriates. And I’m interested in Black shit and all of the other class stuff, too, because I grew up in the South, in the Delta.

Outside of the Appalachians, the Delta is the poorest region in America. But it’s a paradox. It’s the poorest region in America in terms of per capita income, but this is like ground zero for American culture. The duality of that makes it a special place. But I am very working-class identified, so I love that in Richard’s work. I’ve actually appropriated Richard’s appropriations. I’ve actually repeated some of them. I used to be like, I dare you to call me on it, Richard Prince.