The Richard Prince Instagram Art Show meme stems from the 2014 'New Portraits' exhibition at the Gagosian Gallery, where artist Richard Prince presented giant blow-ups of other people's Instagram posts. Prince made minimal changes—mostly adding cryptic or suggestive comments—and sold the pieces for upwards of $100,000 without the original posters' permission. This sparked massive debates over copyright, fair use, and the definition of art in the digital age. In meme culture, the template is used to mock the absurdity of the art world, the concept of low-effort content being valued at extreme prices, and the irony of 'stealing' content under the guise of intellectualism.