Richard Phillips Will Be Showing New Paintings At Gagosian Athens in Greece

In his paintings, Richard Phillips engages the complex web of human obsessions to do with sexuality, politics, power, 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. Departing from the more photorealistic tendencies of recent years, in his newest works Phillips culls celebrity portraits, retro textbook illustrations, logos, and Op Art motifs to produce compressed images in an electric palette. Richard Phillips at Gagosian Athens will be on view until August 1, 2015, 3 Merlin Street Athens 10671

Richard Phillips at Dallas Contemporary

In his first US solo museum exhibition – Negation of the Universe – Richard Phillips brings his exploration of contemporary culture to Dallas. His strikingly distinctive paintings address the complex web of pop themes in our media-saturated world – sexuality, politics, power and death among them. For Phillips, critique is as much an intrinsic material in the conception and staging of his work as the materials of their making. His conflating of subject and genre continues to provide challenging comment on the condition and reach of contemporary art. Negation of the Universewill be on view August 10, 2014 at Dallas Contemporary, 161 Glass Street Dallas Texas

Richard Phillips: First Point

Premiering today as part of Art Unlimited at Art Basel 2012, pop artist Richard Phillips’ short film entitled First Point featuring Lindsay Lohan. Richard Phillips has been exploring the production of film and photographic media as a means of expanding beyond the appropriation strategies that have defined his work in the past by painting unique portraits from his own films which he stages and shoots himself.  He completed his first two films, Lindsay Lohanand Sasha Grey, in the spring of 2011 for the Commercial Break film project presented concurrently to the Venice Biennale. First Point–Phillips' third film—is a collaboration between the artist, Lindsay Lohan, and the legendary surf filmmaker Taylor Steele. The film visits two locations: a private beach surf compound and Malibu's iconic Surfrider Beach, accessible to the public, which boasts some of California's most perfect waves. First Point presents a postmodern take on the surf film genre through an abstract framework of imagery in which the actress engages in cinema performance tropes inspired by contemporary film noir. Presented by Gagosian Gallery, First Point will premier as part of Art Basel's Art Unlimited which will see its invitation only, VIP release today and a public opening on June 14 until June 17.

Richard Phillips: Point of Purchase

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"My pictures involve a kind of wasted beauty - that's always been a thread in my work."  - Richard Phillips

Richard Phillips' tongue in cheek, slightly pornographic, gritty, but oxymoronically glossy paintings have made him an artist among elite of pop art's Mount Olympus that includes the like of Evelyne Axell  and pop art's Zeus Andy Warhol. Richard Phillips was born in Marblehead, Massachusetts in 1962 and now lives and works in New York.  On view for another week at John McWhinnie bookstore in East Hampton, NY is Point of Purchase, "the first full-scale presentation of [Richard Phillips'] commercial interventions." John McWhinnie: "Phillips extends his brand of artmaking into the non-gallery world, colonizing commercial space, manipulating products and displays, from album covers and posters to designer handbags and beach towels." On view until August 8 www.johnmcwhinnie.com

Contemporary Magic: A Tarot Deck Art Project

"The Tarot deck is many things: revered diviner of knowledge, feared revealer of hidden secrets, and critiqued promoter of quackish myth. Regardless of one's take on Tarot card reading, it is certain that the history and imagery of these mysterious cards is ripe territory for contemporary artists to come up with their own interpretations of the 78 personas that make up the standard Tarot deck. And that is exactly what my divine colleague Stacy Engman set about doing as she assembled a group of some of today’s most dynamic artists and asked them to submit a new work based on a tarot card personally assigned by her. The resulting images are just as whimsical as the readings that emerge from an actual reading of the cards. The amazing group of artists included in the project created cards in a range of media (photography, painting and collage) and each infused an additional sense of allure and magic into this already heavily charged lam of mystery. Not only may viewers enjoy the actual works in the exhibition of the original cards, but they may also take them home in this unique catalogue in the form of a deck of Tarot cards in and of itself!" On view at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburg, PA until August 7th –www.warhol.org