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Richard Phillips

April 21–May 25, 2007
Beverly Hills

Installation view, photo by Douglas M. Parker Studio

Installation view, photo by Douglas M. Parker Studio

Installation view, photo by Douglas M. Parker Studio

Installation view, photo by Douglas M. Parker Studio

Installation view Photo by Douglas M. Parker Studio

Installation view Photo by Douglas M. Parker Studio

Installation view Photo by Douglas M. Parker Studio

Installation view Photo by Douglas M. Parker Studio

Installation view Photo by Douglas M. Parker Studio

Installation view Photo by Douglas M. Parker Studio

Installation view Photo by Douglas M. Parker Studio

Installation view Photo by Douglas M. Parker Studio

Works Exhibited

Richard Phillips, L.R.A., 2006 Oil canvas, 100 × 95 inches (254 × 241.3 cm)Photo by Rob McKeever

Richard Phillips, L.R.A., 2006

Oil canvas, 100 × 95 inches (254 × 241.3 cm)
Photo by Rob McKeever

Richard Phillips, Vanitas, 2007 Oil on canvas, 108 × 74 inches (274.3 × 188 cm)Photo by Rob McKeever

Richard Phillips, Vanitas, 2007

Oil on canvas, 108 × 74 inches (274.3 × 188 cm)
Photo by Rob McKeever

Richard Phillips, Awake into Myth, 2007 Oil on canvas, 108 × 72 inches (274.3 × 182.9cm)Photo by Rob McKeever

Richard Phillips, Awake into Myth, 2007

Oil on canvas, 108 × 72 inches (274.3 × 182.9cm)
Photo by Rob McKeever

Richard Phillips, Hell, 2007 Oil on canvas, 114 × 144 ¾ inches (289.6 × 367.7 cm)Photo by Rob McKeever

Richard Phillips, Hell, 2007

Oil on canvas, 114 × 144 ¾ inches (289.6 × 367.7 cm)
Photo by Rob McKeever

Richard Phillips, Göring Deutsche Jägerschaft Letterhead, 2007 Oil on canvas, 108 × 77 inches (274.3 × 195.6 cm)Photo by Rob McKeever

Richard Phillips, Göring Deutsche Jägerschaft Letterhead, 2007

Oil on canvas, 108 × 77 inches (274.3 × 195.6 cm)
Photo by Rob McKeever

Richard Phillips, Tom Cruise, 2007 Oil on canvas, 100 ½ × 72 inches (255.3 × 182.9 cm)Photo by Rob McKeever

Richard Phillips, Tom Cruise, 2007

Oil on canvas, 100 ½ × 72 inches (255.3 × 182.9 cm)
Photo by Rob McKeever

Richard Phillips, L.R.A., 2006 Charcoal and chalk on paper, 22 ⅜ × 21 ¼ inches (56.8 × 54 cm)

Richard Phillips, L.R.A., 2006

Charcoal and chalk on paper, 22 ⅜ × 21 ¼ inches (56.8 × 54 cm)

Richard Phillips, Isa Genzken, 2006 Charcoal on paper, 24 × 24 inches (61 × 61 cm)Photo by Rob McKeever

Richard Phillips, Isa Genzken, 2006

Charcoal on paper, 24 × 24 inches (61 × 61 cm)
Photo by Rob McKeever

Richard Phillips, Free Base, 2006 Charcoal on paper, 19 ½ × 22 ⅜ inches (49.5 × 56.8 cm)Photo by Rob McKeever

Richard Phillips, Free Base, 2006

Charcoal on paper, 19 ½ × 22 ⅜ inches (49.5 × 56.8 cm)
Photo by Rob McKeever

About

"My aim is to use art to contest the validity, sanctity, and acceptance of images as conveyors of meaning stripped of consequence – propaganda, in other words."
—Richard Phillips

Gagosian Gallery is pleased to present a series of new paintings by Richard Phillips. This is his first exhibition with the gallery.

Over the last decade, Phillips has developed a striking signature style that derives its tension from his selective use of popular images that he subjects to the technical, value-laden refinements of academic painting. For Phillips, critique is as much an intrinsic material in the conception and staging of his paintings as the canvas and paint with which they are made. His deft and selective scrambling and conflating of subject and genre continues to provide challenging comment on the condition and reach of painting in our time: Is it a vital medium or a redundant object of nostalgic connoisseurship? How do current art practices relate to painting's history? And is painting central or peripheral to them? As a self-conscious American painter weaned on postmodern appropriation strategies, Phillips is acutely interested in the continually evolving discourse on the many lives and deaths of painting and how this combines, throughout history, with the complex politics of making and reading images.

For this untitled series of imposing and provocative oil paintings, he has culled twelve images from vintage magazines, internet news media, and digital reproductions of historical works of art then amplified them through dramatic shifts in scale and frame. According to Phillips, these depictions of art, politics, morals, sex, celebrities, fashion, ideology, power, advertising, beauty, violence, ecstasy, and war can be instrumentalized by various agendas that distort truth, obfuscate reality, and wield power over individuals. His objective is to crystallize these processes and machinations by fixing them in the distended space of contemporary painting.

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