Read The Final Chapter of Brad Phillips' and Gideon Jacobs' Serial Novella →

Gideon did a great job above finishing his last chapter of this project. You can see that right? Don’t take it for granted that Gideon has talent.

He wrote about the beginning and the ending of things. When you exit a room, you end the experience of being within it, but of course when you exit a room you just enter another one. You are never not in a room. Click here to read more.

Read The Eleventh Chapter Of Gideon Jacobs' & Brad Phillips' Serial Novella →

People emphasize the importance of beginnings and endings. One always wants to “get off on a good foot,” “go out with a bang,” “start strong,” “leave them wanting more,” etc, etc. These truisms are, at their core, about manipulation, and manipulation is, at its core, about control. If our “exquisite corpse serial novella” has taught you anything, which it really shouldn’t have, it’s probably that control is for suckers. Click here to read more.

Read The Ninth Chapter Of Gideon Jacobs' & Brad Phillips' Serial Novella →

text by Gideon Jacobs (and Brad Phillips)

To: Brad and Gideon

From: The Editors

Dear Brad and Gideon, 

To start, we want to thank you for writing your “exquisite corpse serial novella” with us. When you mentioned the concept back in winter, we were immediately intrigued. It sounded like the perfect sandbox for writers like you two to play in, a recipe for something unusual and surprising. Over these months, it’s been fun to watch you ping-pong the novella back and forth, unaware of the other’s intentions and ideas, fingers crossed that it will result in something cohesive and whole. We’ve laughed out loud at some point while reading every single chapter. 

All that said, we’re emailing today just to express a few concerns. Click here to read more.

Read The Eighth Chapter Of Brad Phillips' & Gideon Jacobs' Serial Novella →

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They recommend that when dealing with rapists and murderers you say your name or your kids names, talk about them - “Our son Oscar just started walking!” They even suggest telling your attacker you’re pregnant when you aren’t, which Bobby didn’t like the dishonesty of. When he robbed people he told the truth about what he wanted and what might happen and preferred his victims be honest in return. Considering the circumstances he knew it was an unreasonable expectation. The personalization strategy made sense objectively. Criminals who aren’t set on murder could possibly change their minds in the heat of the moment if their victims could transform themselves from objects into subjects. Click here to read more.

Read The Seventh Chapter Of Brad Phillips' & Gideon Jacobs' Serial Novella →

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Chapter 1 

I’ll write the first chapter, but please know that I am very wary of being someone who takes charge of group projects, someone who breaks the silence after the teacher asks for a volunteer to captain the science olympiad team with an earnest “I’ll do it,” or even worse, an “I’ll do it” of feigned reluctance. I was never that guy in school. No way I wanted to do that much work. But I also didn’t want to be associated with any projects that I considered poorly executed, so unless my “I’ll do it” volunteer was smart, I tended to give so little effort that I could not, in any scholastic court of law, be considered a bonafide collaborator. Click here to read more.

Read The Sixth Chapter Of Brad Phillips' & Gideon Jacobs' Serial Novella

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Dear Ms. Jacobs,

If you’re reading this letter it means your son is dead, along with a much older man named Brad Phillips he was working with on some obscure writing project - a project which I think tested their endurance for suffering, a test they seemed to have failed. Typically, when you receive a letter like this, it will say, ‘If you’re reading this I AM dead,” and comes from a loved one in the form of a suicide note, or it comes from a friend or family member who is being stalked by the American Intelligence Apparatus (see Danny Casolaro). I wish for your sake your son had it together enough to write an ‘If you’re reading this’ (Dear John becomes Dear Mom) letter himself, but please try not to judge him too harshly — only now am I beginning to understand the amount of pressure he and his friend Mr. Phillips were under to — as they described it  somewhat pretentiously — ‘revolutionize contemporary literature’. Attached is a letter Mr. Phillips wrote to your son Gideon. Perhaps more letters will be unearthed. I wish you the very best and am sorry for your loss.

-Detective Leslie Morris

Click here to read more.

Read The Fifth Chapter Of Gideon Jacobs and Brad Phillips Serial Novella "Cheaters" →

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Dear Ms. Jacobs,

Below, see a transcription of one of many handwritten letters Gideon sent Brad in the days leading up to what the two writers were flippantly referring to as their “groundbreaking innovation for the murder-suey industry.” It seems they weren’t exactly following the rules of their exquisite-corpse serial novella, and were secretly corresponding behind their editors’ backs the whole time. I hope these words give you some insight into their mental states during this period, and that some insight affords you some solace. 

-Detective Leslie Morris

P.S. For the record, we’re still figuring out who did the murdering and who did the suey-ing. It’s…complicated. 

Click here to read more.

Read the Fourth Chapter of Brad Phillips' & Gideon Jacobs' Serial Novella →

Over the next year, Brad Phillips and Gideon Jacobs are writing a 12-chapter "serial novella" for Autre. It will be written Exquisite Corpse style — they will alternate who writes each month's chapter, and won’t have access to the previous chapter until it has been published. Brad and Gideon have not discussed plot, structure, format, themes, characters, etc, and promise not to do so even once the project is underway. The idea is to react to each other's work, and hope the final Frankensteinian product is something that deserves to exist. If the authors like what they've made when it's done, the editors might publish it as a "zine." Installments will go up on the 15th of every month. Click here to read Chapter 4.

Read The Third Chapter Of Gideon Jacobs' & Brad Phillips' New Serial Novella →

Over the next year, Brad Phillips and Gideon Jacobs are writing a 12-chapter "serial novella" for Autre. It will be written Exquisite Corpse style — they will alternate who writes each month's chapter, and won’t have access to the previous chapter until it has been published. Brad and Gideon have not discussed plot, structure, format, themes, characters, etc, and promise not to do so even once the project is underway. The idea is to react to each other's work, and hope the final Frankensteinian product is something that deserves to exist. If the authors like what they've made when it's done, the editors might publish it as a "zine." Installments will go up on the 15th of every month. Click here to read Chapter 3: Luridly Liminal / Liminally Lurid.

Read The Second Chapter Of Brad Phillips' & Gideon Jacobs' Serial Novella →

Over the course of 2020, Brad Phillips and Gideon Jacobs are writing a 12-chapter "serial novella" for Autre. It will be written Exquisite Corpse style — they will alternate who writes each month's chapter, and won’t have access to the previous chapter until it has been published. Brad and Gideon have not discussed plot, structure, format, themes, characters, etc, and promise not to do so even once the project is underway. The idea is to react to each other's work, and hope the final Frankensteinian product is something that deserves to exist. If the authors like what they've made when it's done, the editors might publish it as a "zine." Installments go up on the 15th of every month. Click here to read Chapter 2: Guillermo’s Funeral.

Read The First Chapter Of Gideon Jacobs' & Brad Phillips' New Serial Novella →

Over the next year, Brad Phillips and Gideon Jacobs are writing a 12-chapter "serial novella" for Autre. It will be written Exquisite Corpse style — they will alternate who writes each month's chapter, and won’t have access to the previous chapter until it has been published. Brad and Gideon have not discussed plot, structure, format, themes, characters, etc, and promise not to do so even once the project is underway. The idea is to react to each other's work, and hope the final Frankensteinian product is something that deserves to exist. If the authors like what they've made when it's done, the editors might publish it as a "zine." Installments will go up on the 15th of every month. Click here to read Chapter 1: G & B.

Getting Off: Read Brad Phillips' Interview With Author Erica Garza On Her Journey Through Sex & Porn Addiction →

In the following interview, Brad Phillips speaks to author, Erica Garza about their mutual experience with sex and porn addiction. Challenging the stereotype that sexual addiction is within a man’s nature, and for a woman, the result of sexual trauma, in Getting Off: One Woman's Journey Through Sex and Porn Addiction, Garza recounts a life of “revolting” fantasies both imagined and realized. She lays out a lifetime of orgasmic pressure begging to be released, and she courageously traces her road to recovery. Throughout the conversation, Phillips and Garza share their experiences of responding to fans who look to them for guidance, the benefits of being triggered, and the sexual taboos that continue to plague our sense of moral authority. Click here to read more.

Cristine Brache & Brad Phillips Open "Epithalamium" @ Anat Ebgi In Los Angeles

Taking its name from the epithalamium, a poem written for a bride, Cristine Brache and Brad Phillips, wife and husband artists, examine the potential of marriage, allowing their lived experience to speak to larger narratives of bodily trauma and mortality, while alluding to the intimate qualities of a unique partnership. Pain has exterior indicators we can all recognize, chiefly via language. Yet language is often insufficient to adequately articulate, or empathize with, another’s suffering. Brache and Phillips transmit these difficult and impossible positions inside the language-based programs of culture, allowing for moments of vulnerability. The exhibition is on view through March 9th at AE2 2680 S La Cienega Blvd, Los Angeles. photographs by Oliver Kupper

10 Must See Art Shows Around The World That You Really, Really Need To Check Out

1. Consumption, sexuality, violence, voyeurism, discomfort, guilt, loss of control, and fantasy at Paul McCarthy’s exhibition at Schinkel Pavillon – on view until November 22 in Berlin, Germany 2. Brad Phillip’s erotic Honeymoon Rehearsal at Rod Bianco opening on November 20 in Oslo, Norway 3. See Niki de Saint Phalle’s psychedelic world at the National Art Center in Tokyo, Japan – on view until December 14 4. Alex Israel’s cool, cool world at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, Texas 5. See the late Dash Snow’s posthumous retrospective at the Brant Foundation in Greenwich, Connecticut 6. Misha Hollenbach and Cali Thornhill Dewitt team up for Hot Fire in Milan, Italy 7. Pablo Picasso’s sculptures are on view at The Museum of Modern Art In New York City, New York 8. The Avant-Garde Won’t Give Up at Blum & Poe in Los Angeles, California 9. Josh Jefferson is putting his Head Into The Trees at Gallery 16, opening on November 13, in San Francisco, California 10. Gilbert & George’s subversive banners will be on view at White Cube starting on November 25 in London, Englan

Artist Brad Phillips Leaves a Suicide Note Before the Opening of His Exhibition at Freddy Gallery In Baltimore

Tomorrow, Freddy Gallery in Baltimore will open "Problem Is You," a group exhibition featuring three artists: Aaron Carpenter, Philip Hinge, and the very much alive (but maybe not well) Brad Phillips. Instead of a traditional statement about the exhibition and the artists, the gallery offers a morbid, but brilliant, suicide note penned by Phillips, which probably sums up the exhibition more than any standard press release could. If you don't follow Phillips on Instagram, you should - it is an extenuation of the artist's unique practice that ranges from delicate near-photorealistic paintings to text based play-on-words to prose - his book Suicidal Realism is out now on the Swimmer's Group imprint. In the following suicide note, Brad Phillips offers his disdain for the mechanics of the art world and he narrates a spiritual journey of selfhood and artisthood in the midst of self doubt, depression and addition. Click here to read Brad Phillips' suicide note. 

Harper Levine of Harper's Books At His Anti-Fair Pop-Up At the Carlyle Hotel In New York

Harper Levine of Harper's Books at his Anti-Fair Pop-Up, which takes up a double room suite at the Carlyle Hotel. Get your hands on beautiful rare art books, art by the likes of Eric Brown and Brad Phillips, and other ephemera. On view until Friday, May 15 at the Carlyle Hotel in New York. photograph by Oliver Maxwell Kupper