About
In his paintings, Richard Phillips engages the complex web of human obsessions to do with sexuality, politics, power, and death that are constantly exploited in mainstream media. Subjecting popular images to a range of classical painterly techniques, he estranges their familiarity and thus imbues them with new meaning. Photographic images of politicians are re-cast in neon, while supermodels are represented as academic paintings, as if to augment their status as pop icons. Over and over again throughout his work, the glossy idealism of advertising propaganda is subverted by his underlying resistance to its blatant seduction.
Richard Phillips was born in 1962 in Marblehead, Massachusetts. He received his B.F.A. in 1984 from Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, and his M.F.A. in 1986 from Yale University of Art, Connecticut. Recent solo museum exhibitions include Kunsthalle Zürich, Switzerland (2000); Kunstverein Hamburg, Germany (2002); “Paintings and Drawings,” Le Consortium, Dijon (2004); “Lindsay Lohan,” Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane (2012); and “Negation of the Universe,” Dallas Contemporary, Texas (2014). Public collections include the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California; Denver Art Museum, Colorado; Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas; Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami; Tate Modern, London; and Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, the Netherlands.
His films Lindsay Lohan and Sasha Grey premiered at the 54th Biennale di Venezia in 2011 and at the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane in 2012. First Point premiered at Art Unlimited at Art Basel, Switzerland in June 2012.
Phillips currently lives and works in New York City.
#RichardPhillips
Website
Exhibitions
Fairs, Events & Announcements

Auction
Aspen Art Museum
ArtCrush
August 3–6, 2021
As part of its annual ArtCrush celebration honoring those whose creativity and vision impact the field of contemporary art, the Aspen Art Museum in Colorado presents an auction to benefit its artistic and educational programming. This year’s auction, hosted on sothebys.com, features work by contemporary artists including Richard Phillips and Mary Weatherford. A selection of the lots will be auctioned live at the museum’s ArtCrush gala on Friday, August 6. To inquire about bidding, contact eneckes@aspenartmuseum.org.
Mary Weatherford, Outer Reaches of Space, Reason, and Time, 2021 © Mary Weatherford. Photo: Fredrik Nilsen Studio
Museum Exhibitions

Closed
Some Aesthetic Decisions
A Centennial Celebration of Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain
May 14–September 3, 2017
NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale, Florida
nsuartmuseum.org
One hundred years ago, Marcel Duchamp forever changed the nature of art when he submitted Fountain, a porcelain urinal, to the Society of Independent Artists exhibition in New York. The subsequent rejection of Duchamp’s Fountain by the exhibition’s organizers ignited a controversy that continues today about the definition of art. This exhibition includes work by Jeff Koons, Richard Phillips, Andy Warhol, and others.
Andy Warhol, Brillo Soap Pads Box, 1964, Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh © 2017 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York