Galerie Gmurzynska inaugurated a new series by the contemporary artist Richard Phillips at its Paradeplatz location on the occasion of the Zurich Film Festival. His first solo show in Zürich in 24 years Richard Phillips achieves technically masterful portraits of celebrities who were nominated for film major awards in 2024 such as Cillian Murphy, Margot Robbie, Bradley Cooper and Emily Blunt.
Richard Phillips’s work critically examines themes of sexuality, politics, and celebrity as promoted in popular media. His importance to contemporary painting and culture is underscored not only by his solo exhibitions at Kunsthalle Zürich, Kunstverein Hamburg, Gagosian and White Cube. While he is being collected by the Museum of Modern Art (New York), Whitney Museum of American Art (New York), and the Tate Modern (London), among others, he is also known for his boundary-pushing interventions such as a film premiere at the 54th Venice Biennale, an integral cameo in Gossip Girl, and the 2023 Porsche Art Car.
Art critic Kat Herriman writes of the series, “Best Picture Richard Phillips debuted his first celebrity portraits at the apotheosis of the paparazzi era. And there were no doubt some camera crews at the star-filled opening of his 2010 exhibition for White Cube London. The show’s title, “Most Wanted,” simultaneously distilled the sentiment of that moment while prophesying its swift downfall with the dominance of the camera phone and the way it turned us all into stars. A frozen slice of the 2000s celebrity fanaticism, the exhibition marked an important body of work for an artist who’d achieved his own pop cultural consciousness through sallies into entertainment real (Bravos’ “Work of Art: The Next Great Artist) and scripted (Gossip Girl). “Most Wanted” tried to answer the question that first propelled Phillips to fame: where is the place for careful, labor-intensive painting/looking in a culture with an insatiable hunger for personal details and an ever-steady supply of stolen images?”
Phillips’ artistic exploration often reflects the shifting dynamics between image consumption and creation in today’s media-saturated society. His works delve into how celebrity culture and social media have transformed public and personal identities, raising questions about the nature of fame and its fleeting quality. As an artist, Phillips remains deeply engaged in the conversation surrounding how visual art can critique and mirror popular culture. His skill in blending fine art with these themes adds layers of complexity to his portraits, offering viewers not just a glimpse of celebrity figures, but also a commentary on their cultural significance.
Photo Courtesy: Galerie Gmurzynska
“This year, Phillips agreed to return to this iconic series to catalog the actors behind this year’s most impressive film performances for The Wrap, an industry magazine distributed to entertainment agents, movie producers and film studios. Appearing first as a printed folio, the resulting series, 2024 Nominees, is composed of twelve pastels. Executed more than a decade after the oil paint originals, their compulsive precision reads differently. In our self-taped age of “candid” photography, the red-carpet imagery feels uncannily formal, perhaps even uncomfortable (a register Phillips clearly relishes embellishing). Rather than darkly humored, his pictures feel nostalgic, and that is the most alarming thing of all. Memory’s misregistration isn’t just making things softer.”
For more information on the gallery and its artists and activities, you may visit www.gmurzynska.com.
Published by: Nelly Chavez
