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# The Bad Celebrity Art of Richard Phillips
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/richard-phillips-fan-art/
- Published: 2011-11-16T23:54:35.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:37:01.000Z
- Description: Holy shit, I can't believe how bad someone who shows at Gagosian can be. Honestly, WTF!?!?! I love embracing artists of all stripes but this dude essentially makes high-brow-ish fan art.
- Author: Hrag Vartanian
- Tags: Opinion, #image-position-hidden, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2025-11-17 09:23 (2009-2011)

[![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2011/11/elle-richard-phillips-600.jpg "elle-richard-phillips-600")](http://www.elle.com/Fashion/Fashion-Spotlight/China-Chow-Becomes-Pop-Art?ref=hyperallergic.com#mode=base;slide=1;)

Holy shit, I can’t believe how bad someone who [shows at Gagosian](http://www.gagosian.com/artists/richard-phillips/?ref=hyperallergic.com) can be. Honestly, WTF!?!?! I love embracing artists of all stripes but this dude essentially makes high-brow-ish fan art.

[Painting celebrities](http://artruby.com/richard-phillips%E2%80%99-most-wanted-a-true-teenage-and-collector%E2%80%99s-dream?ref=hyperallergic.com) as a commentary on celebrity or history painting — or whatever he thinks it is — is dull, making ad-like [videos of celebrities](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player%5Fembedded&v=--rs7Ni7nmA&ref=hyperallergic.com) is duller but a badly done [photo shoot](http://www.elle.com/Fashion/Fashion-Spotlight/China-Chow-Becomes-Pop-Art?ref=hyperallergic.com#mode=base;slide=5;) of a d-list reality TV personality is dullest.

His recently photos of *Work of Art* host China Chow for Elle is one of the most appallingly bad photo spreads I’ve encountered in ages. Mr. Phillips what you do looks most of the time like celebrity posters for the 1% or art school experiments.

I saw you speak at an event recently and I wanted to like you, I thought perhaps there was a level of scrutiny that I’m not seeing … something … but alas nada.

This may be the first and last thing I ever write about Phillips, but I’m curious what other people think. Am I missing something? Honestly, help me.

Oh wait, your [portrait of Leonardo di Caprio](http://blogs.artinfo.com/artintheair/2011/11/16/richard-phillips-shoots-a-pop-portrait-of-leonardo-dicaprio-for-the-new-interview-russia/?ref=hyperallergic.com) is pretty … well, if what you’re doing could be done with a smartphone app … nevermind.