Rene Ricard

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René Ricard – Life, Work, and Memorable Quotes

Explore the life and legacy of René Ricard (1946–2014), the American poet, painter, art critic, and Warhol‐era icon. Discover his early years, artistic voice, major writings, influence on the 1980s art scene, and unforgettable quotes.

Introduction

René Ricard (born Albert Napoleon Ricard; July 23, 1946 – February 1, 2014) was an American poet, painter, actor, and art critic.

He acquired renown not just for his poetry and visual art, but also for his incisive criticism, his early championing of artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat, and his charismatic presence in the downtown New York arts milieu.

Ricard intertwined multiple roles—poet, painter, critic, performer—so that his life itself became part of the aesthetic. His writing (especially his essays in Artforum) and his painted poems left a lasting impression on late 20th-century art culture.

Early Life and Background

He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and grew up in Acushnet, near New Bedford.

From a young age, he showed precocious taste and personality. According to one account, he dropped out of school after completing the eighth grade, feeling his intellectual life had outpaced the conventional classroom.

As a teenager, he gravitated toward Boston’s literary circles and experimented with life in the city.

At about age 18, he moved to New York City, a turning point that placed him at the center of the emerging avant-garde art and literary scene.

There, he became associated with Andy Warhol’s circle and appeared in Warhol films.

Career and Achievements

Poetry & Visual Work

Ricard began publishing poetry in the late 1960s in literary journals such as The Paris Review.

His first major collection was René Ricard 1979-1980, published by the DIA Foundation, designed to look like a Tiffany & Co. catalog.

Subsequent poetry books include:

• God With Revolver (1990)

• Trusty Sarcophagus Co. (1990) — in which his poems are often integrated visually (painted words)

• Love Poems (1999)

By the late 1980s and beyond, Ricard often painted his poems—or overlaid words on found imagery or antique prints—blurring the boundaries between text and visual art.

He exhibited visual works in several solo and group shows across New York, London, and elsewhere.

Criticism, Essays & Influence

One of Ricard’s most enduring legacies is in his art criticism, especially for Artforum. His December 1981 essay “The Radiant Child” is often cited as a pivotal text that helped bring Jean-Michel Basquiat to prominence.

He also wrote on artists such as Julian Schnabel and Francesco Clemente, often helping to frame their public reputations within the 1980s art boom.

Ricard was sometimes referred to by Andy Warhol as “the George Sanders of the Lower East Side, the Rex Reed of the art world.”

His critical voice was flamboyant, witty, sometimes controversial—but also deeply invested in defending artistic vitality over commercial or historical commodification.

He also participated in performance, acting in underground films (e.g. Underground U.S.A. in 1980) and in the Theater of the Ridiculous.

Later Years and Death

In his later years, Ricard continued to exhibit, publish, and collaborate.

He lived for much of his life in the famed Chelsea Hotel in New York City.

On February 1, 2014, René Ricard passed away in Bellevue Hospital, New York, due to cancer, at the age of 67.

Historical Context & Impact

• Ricard emerged at a moment when the New York art world was shifting—pop art, minimalism, graffiti, and new figurative movements all converged in the 1970s and 1980s. His hybrid role (poet/critic/artist) gave him a vantage bridging multiple worlds.

• His 1981 “The Radiant Child” essay is often considered a landmark moment in the public rise of Basquiat—and in how critics could shape young artists’ trajectories.

• He was part of the downtown avant-garde, interacting with poets, painters, performance artists, filmmakers—his life mirrored the cross-pollination of New York’s creative edges.

• His painted poems and the merging of visual and verbal art anticipated later practices in conceptual and mixed media art.

Personality, Style & Themes

Ricard was known for a flamboyant, mordant wit, a capacity for audacious statements, and an aesthetic persona that consciously performed itself.

His writing and poetry often reflect tensions between glamour and ruin, affirmation and despair, art and commerce.

He had a kind of mythic aura—renowned for his critique of taste, his loyalty to “living” art over historical fetishism, and his stance against the commodification of creativity.

A recurring theme is the defense of art in the moment—protecting it from being enshrined prematurely in history, or turned into a speculative commodity.

Famous Quotes by René Ricard

Here are some of his more striking statements:

“I pledge allegiance to the living, and I will defend art from history. I will rescue art from the future, from its attrition into taste, and from the speculative notion that it will become more valuable with time.”

“I don’t have a philosophy in a nutshell; I would go on and on too much.”

“I should be paid to go out. You see, I’m good for business. I class up a joint.”

“We’re no longer collecting art; we’re buying people.”

These lines capture Ricard’s fierce insistence that art, life, and commerce remain entangled—and that the critic must remain alive, provocative, and uncompromising.

Lessons & Legacy

1. Be a boundary-walker. Ricard refused to limit himself to one role—poet, painter, critic, performer—and thus embodied a fluid artistic identity.

2. Criticism can make or break reputations. His writings about Basquiat and others show how a sharp critical voice can shape an artist’s reception.

3. Defend immediacy over posterity. His insistence on keeping art alive, resisting premature canonization or commodification, remains a powerful stance.

4. Merge form & content. His painted poems demonstrate that the visual medium need not subordinate the poetic voice, but can amplify it.

5. Embrace contradiction. Ricard’s life was full of paradox—glamour and ruin, critique and complicity, visibility and marginality. That tension was central to his power.

Conclusion

René Ricard lived a life where art, criticism, and persona coalesced. His poems, essays, and painted texts continue to reverberate, offering both testimonies and provocations. He remains an icon of the downtown New York art scene, a poet who painted words and a critic who lived in the frame.