I’ve been a mild fan of Richard Phillips’ work for a minute or two. The theme of his stuff is sort of trashy chic, or as he terms it, “wasted beauty,” and recalls a style reminiscent of pop culture glossies from the 1960s (Think Brigitte Bardot photographed by Sam Levin). At least that’s how I’d describe his work if someone held a gun to my head and asked me to explain it.
Anyway, Phillips has created a couple of short film portraits in tribute to a couple of the ladies most synonymous with “wasted beauty” in this era, Lindsay Lohan and Sasha Grey, that are being screened at the 54th international exhibition of the Venice Biennale in Venice, Italy this weekend. Additionally, much to my delight, they were posted on the web.
And that’s where something besides the videos caught my eye, specifically Phillips’ description of the body of work Grey’s famous for…
“For my film portrait of Sasha Grey, I wanted to focus on her expressive and psychological transformation into a cinematic actor, separate from the cues that have associated Sasha with her previous career as a performance artist working within the adult film world.”
Now, this isn’t anything new — Grey’s people seem to be aggressively attempting to rebrand her as she transitions out of porn and into the mainstream — but this quote struck me as kind of ridiculous. A “a performance artist working within the adult film world?” You mean to tell me that when she was getting violently sodomized by a room full of dudes that was merely an artist performing the role of a dirty, c*ock-loving porn star, and not really a dirty, c*ock-loving porn star? Come on!
I wish Sasha would just own being a porn star. She’s hot, she loves to f*ck, and she got paid lots of money to do it on film, and the Internet loved her and made her into a superstar. What’s the problem? It’s 2011 for God’s sake!
Now, with all of that said, Phillips did make a beautiful SFW little film with her. Enjoy…
SASHA GREY from V Magazine on Vimeo.
And here’s the Lohan video as well…
(Pic via)
