Monday, December 28, 2015

Richard Phillips at Mathew

Richard Phillips at Mathew
(link)

Yeah that Richard Phillips, channeling Wool and Oehlen in the fabric with a playboy bunny.

There's an old artworld legend, that as far as known here is true: of a famed and admired painter, European and critical darling, 6 or 7 figure painter, this is 2003, painter with a waiting list and shows sold before even openings, this painter deciding to exhibit at a small provincial gallery of the American midwest in what couldn't even be called the garage of the green front lawn of a suburban home but a sort of concrete storage shed not much larger than the honest to goodness 6 or 7 figure painting being shown in 6 square meters of gallery space, to be sold out of that shed. It was one of those star-struck mutually beneficial kind of deals. Artists using the full breadth of their powers and burning it as gift, street cred for economy kind of deals.

This exhibition is like the black oily bizarro version of that legend.