Richard Phillips

March 12-Richard Phillips, artist

Richard Phillips is a New York-based artist known for his strikingly distinctive paintings, such as the early Girl Child, 1996-97 in the Modern’s permanent collection. Using found imagery, Phillips’s work addresses the marketability of man and his wishes, ideas, actions, identity, sexuality, politics, and desires. He translates these images into both drawings and paintings, and, in doing so, he makes use of the iconic quality of pictures, which the media and art use daily—each according to its own agenda. Recently, Phillips has begun to explore filmmaking and photography as means of moving beyond found imagery in his paintings. He completed his first film, Lindsay Lohan, in 2011. The film premiered at the 2011 Venice Biennale in tandem with his second film, Sasha Grey. His third film premiered at Art Basel’s Art Unlimited exhibition in Basel, Switzerland, in June 2012. All three films were shown for the first time in the United States alongside a group of corresponding paintings at Gagosian Gallery in New York in September 2012.

For this Tuesday Evenings presentation, “Painting Beyond Reason,” Phillips addresses a selection of works spanning his career, with an emphasis on his most recent shows at White Cube in London and Gagosian Gallery in New York and three short films.

The spring series for Tuesday Evenings at the Modern begins February 12 and ends April 23. These lectures and presentations by artists, architects, historians, and critics are held in the Modern's auditorium and begin at 7 pm. Free admission tickets (limit two) can be picked up at the Modern's information desk beginning at 5 pm on the day of the lecture. Seating begins at 6:30 pm and is limited to the first 250 ticketholders. A live broadcast of the lectures is shown in Café Modern for any additional guests. The Museum galleries remain open until 7 pm on Tuesdays during the series (regular gallery admission charge applies).

Café Modern is open for dinner on Tuesday nights during the lecture series. Enjoy a fine dining experience before or after the lecture; seating is available from 5 pm to 8:30 pm. For reservations, call 817.840.2157 or visit www.themodern.org/cafe.

Richard Phillips, Girl Child, 1996-97. Oil on linen, 90 ¼ x 100 ¼ x 1 5/8 inches. Collection of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Gift of the Director's Council, 1997. © Richard Phillips. Courtesy Gagosian Gallery