Richard Prince found a way to unload his American teenage passions.

When about 13 my friend Tony and i stole cars for a season. We would tell our parents we were playing basketball in the proddy church basement court.

We'd skulk around outside the neighborhood barrooms until we found a car ('55 chevies were good because of a poorly designed ignition that was a snap to hot wire), and we'd take turns driving, lurching through the narrow 3-decker lined autumn streets. After a half hour or so we'd put the car back where we stole it and the next day check the paper for police reports.

When i see Prince's work i recall the mid-twentieth century male rituals of cars and dark roads and the legacy of road deaths and lung cancer.