RESEARCH: Directors

Richard Phillips

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For Richard PhillipS, his merging of subject and genre continues to provide challenging comment on the situation and reach of contemporary art.

Phillips has embarked on a new phase of work that centres on the self-awareness of real-life subjects.  Lindsay Lohan (2011) and Sasha Grey (2011), his first two films, made their debut at the “Commercial Break” film project at the 2011 Biennale di Venezia. In these "motion portraits ", the notorious actresses pose erotically: Grey in a modernist John Lautner home, and Lohan in an aquamarine infinity pool. Both actresses project self-conscious recognition in their performances and in turn point toward the transformative potential of narrative action, framed by their compelling beauty.  Phillips’s third film, First Point (2012) marks his second collaboration with Lohan and third collaboration with legendary surf filmmaker Taylor Steele. A contemporary film, First Point juxtaposes haunting night-time imagery with surf sequences of Lohan.

Phillips uses joint forms of image production to reorder the relationship of Pop art to its subjects. The staging and format of his films presage the return of their subjects as paintings; eventually, they form the foundation for lush, large-scale works such as Sasha, Lindsay II, and Lindsay III.

Born in Massachusetts in 1962, Richard Phillips lives and works in New York. He has exhibited his work in many individual and group exhibitions in the U.S. and Europe. Recent solo exhibitions include “Richard Phillips: Paintings and Drawings,” Le Consortium, Dijon, 2004; “Richard Phillips,” Kunstverein Hamburg, 2002, and “Richard Phillips,” Kunsthalle Zurich, 2000. He is represented in important public and private collections worldwide including the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York; the Denver Museum, Colorado; UBS Paine Webber Art Collection, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Tate Modern, London; Van Abbe museum, Eindhoven, The Netherlands; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. First Point premiered at Art Unlimited at Art Basel, Switzerland in June 2012.

Sam Brown

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Strong”, starring the band and a guy who puts on an awesome, dangerous-looking and completely one-of-a-kind fireworks show for his young daughter. The band wandering the streets of an apocalyptic-looking LA while a father and child plot what looks like some kind of attack. In reality, they're actually organising a firework display in which the dad is turned into some sort of human Catherine Wheel for no apparent reason. Directed by the man behind the phenomenal ‘Rolling In the Deep‘ by Adele, Sam Brown, has managed to capture the essence of London Grammar’s chilling new track. The narrative of the video is slightly ambiguous, but the muted tones throughout add a strong atmosphere to the clip. It is a cinematic and emotive visual accompaniment to the mesmerising cut. 

Sam Brown is a multi-award winning director who transcends various styles and genres of the moving image. He has worked with music names that we all know; from Foo Fighters to James Blunt to The Verve and produces quality videos which, in his words, “Bring out the best in the artist”. Sam seems to have a gift for capturing artists in a very personal and endearing way, with none of the glam & glitz that Hollywood-made MV’s tend to have the look of.  Magazine called his Grammy & double MTV Award winning promo for Adele’s ‘Rolling in the Deep’, ‘2011’s most watched and liked pop video in the UK’ with over 265m hits on YouTube.