Prince - The Black Album

“He had allowed the dark side of him to create something evil"

Handfinished 2 colour screenprint 

Edition of 1

330gsm Fedrigoni paper

70 x 85cm

Signed and Numbered

Framed in a thin black aluminium frame with art glass.

The Black Album is the sixteenth studio album by American recording artist Prince. It was released on November 22, 1994, by Warner Bros. Records. It was originally planned for release on December 8, 1987, as the follow-up to Sign o' the Times and was to appear in an entirely black sleeve with no title or even a credit to Prince; hence it was referred to as The Black Album. Dubbed The Funk Bible by preceding press releases, and in a hidden message within the album itself, the work seemed to be a reaction to criticism that Prince had become too pop-oriented. It was his attempt to regain his black audience. The 1987 promo-only release had no printed title, artist name, production credits or photography printed; a simple black sleeve accompanied the disc. On promotional copies, only a song listing and catalog number—25677—were printed on the disc itself. 

"This is part of ‘The Nightmare Series’: A chance email from a Chinese “copy village” gave inspiration to this series. The village offered, via email, a list of artists it could reproduce, including three Andy Warhol paintings. The idea of Warhol’s entire artistic output distilled right down to three small 64x64 pixel thumbnails of Jackie Kennedy, Liz Taylor and an Electric Chair became the inspiration for these doomed and dripping celebrity portraits.