Richard Phillips turned from his iconic paintings to explore two very provocative women through film, fledgling tabloid fixture Lindsey Lohan and ex-porn star Sasha Grey. In “Sasha Grey,” the evocative 90-second film is shot in the striking John Lautner Chemosphere House off Mulholland Drive, a particularly poignant choice as the panoramic views overlook the San Fernando Valley landscape—the location of some of her most noted adult performances. Grey doesn’t say a word but manages to convey both melancholy and also a sense of evolution. Perhaps not surprising then that she announced her retirement from the adult entertainment industry only one month before the May 5th filming.

Both films will be played on a giant mobile video screen floating through the center of Venice as part of “Commercial Break,” presented by the Garage Center for Contemporary Culture during the Venice Biennale.

We spoke with Phillips on the eve of the premiere:

A still from "Sasha Grey"

Sasha and Lindsey are two provocative women, why did you choose them?
I think that they’re both at really important turning points in their young careers. And each for very, very different reasons. But insofar that they are turning points, what I wanted both of my films to really explore was positive trajectory of what their potentials really are, away from what the media has portrayed them and away from what society generally heaps on top of them, obviously for really different reasons and different contexts.

What was it about Sasha, in particular?
Sasha, in five short years, in her adult performance—which I’m using the term that she calls it—literally conquered the international adult performance world. She has shown this clear intention to move into her artwork and film with Soderbergh’s The Girlfriend Experience and with her work on Entourage, both of which I thought were really sensational and really showed her potential as an upcoming actress. I was really inspired by that in the sense that here’s someone who’s at the top of her game in one profession and is deciding to make this important transition at a really young age into a different form of art. And I thought that is a really inspiring message that I want to look at in a really positive way.

It is beautiful, but also haunting and a little sad. What were you trying to convey?
I think that there is a kind of a gravitas in a way. In the adult performance film, rarely do you see that side of Sasha. Or even in the way Soderbergh portrayed her, there were hints of that, but what we wanted to do was not have this film have any relationship to the adult world. We wanted to look at the dramatic potential of her and her acting as an autonomous experience. One that in a way surveys her circumstances but then projects much more. Has a more psychological portent in looking at the psychological consequences, or at least psychologically of what has come before.

Though she still exudes this sexuality.
Absolutely. She is one of the brightest and most articulate exponents that I’ve ever heard about sexuality today. She is very, I guess the term would be ‘pro sex’, the term used in certain forms of art. She is, in any of her performances and in anything she has written or spoken about, is empowered by sexuality and definitely has made an extraordinary impact on the world with it.

A still from "Sasha Grey"

How did the collaboration come to be?
We were introduced by a friend and talked about collaborating in some form, although it wasn’t a specific form. Film wasn’t discussed. It really had much more to do with painting. We had a dialogue back and forth about where that possibly might go. For me, using the reference point of the Godard’s Contempt and Bergman’s Persona were in a sense grounding points for both films though they had very different results. I think that that is something that Sasha responded to differently. I think those more emotional projections that come from Sasha’s performance, that sadness or gravitas, was part of the discussion we had about being in a consequential point in one’s life where the decision to live within one’s art, there is sacrifice, there are challenges that are involved within that, and it does get expressed in sometimes more serious terms.

Why video rather than one of your iconic paintings?
This is a really important point. The last show I did in London, titled "Most Wanted," were appropriations of red carpet images of kind of the world’s most sought after celebrities. They were red carpet appropriations that showed them in front of commercial backdrops. In that sense I was thinking that art had reached this point that it was necessary for a celebrity endorsement and a luxury brand for it to be art at all. In that way, they were minimal paintings that just addressed their own self-necessity. So with these films, I was trying to really move past that. I felt like I really bottomed out that type of logic and I really wanted to look at what’s behind all of this and people with real experiences going through transformations with their lives. And I think that it was an extraordinary opportunity to explore a post-appropriation type of artwork in a sense, where I felt like I reached an endpoint with appropriation, it needed to be a content that was connected to individuals and this transformational state, which, in a sense, I felt like I was going through too by making the decision to renounce appropriation.

What was the song in the background?
In both films, the music is done by women that are the same age as the two actors that are in the film, which was important to me as a part of the experience of looking at them. In Sasha’s film, it’s this song called "Moses" by Chelsea Wolfe, this young dark folk musician. Her album called The Grime and The Glow has been very, very inspirational to me as has Tamaryn’s The Waves. It was the soundtrack to the other film. Music to me is very, very important in both films, but in Sasha’s it takes an even more important role in that if you follow the lyrics and then follow the precise emotions or movements that are happening within the film, there are these oppositions that are set up. When she says, “I can’t,” you see Sasha in the position of straightening her sweater and it’s very much “I can,” or when it says, “It’s heavy,” she’s lightly putting her hand on the glass of the door. So there are not only spiraling visual narratives or micro narratives going on within the film but also a relationship to what Chelsea is singing. Not coincidentally, Sasha is also a musician and her band is on the same label as Chelsea’s, though I still don’t think they know yet that the two are joined together. I’m sure they’ll be happy to find out.

"Sasha Grey" by Richard Phillips

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Get the look from June's, "Brighter Shade of Pale," shot by Willy Vanderperre:

Marc Jacobs’s cotton bra, $850, and brief, $925, marcjacobs.com.

Louis Vuitton’s Lycra bikini, $635, louisvuitton.com.

Oscar de la Renta’s nylon and elastane swimsuit, $525, at Oscar de la Renta, oscardelarenta.com.

Pret-a-Surf’s polyamide and elastane rash guard, $165, and bikini (bottom only shown), $325, at Opening Ceremony, openingceremony.us.

Alex and Vanessa Prager

While Vanessa Prager's resume says "No formal education," for the 26-year-old painter, illustrator, and younger sister of photographer Alex Prager, artistic blood clearly runs in the family. Vanessa started painting at 19, had her first show in 2003 and has been wooing the art world with her unique works ever since, even garnering a recent commission from Shepard Fairey. "...It's exciting to see how she has developed her own unique voice," says Alex. "Her pictures now are super psychedelic. They feel like the 1940s mixed with Blade Runner and Mad Max."

Vanessa's paintings and Bic ballpoint pen drawings will be on display together for the first time for one night only at the ADBD gallery in Los Angeles on June 2. So, on the heels of her show, the sisters (who live together in Silverlake with their dog, Jake) sat down to talk building forts as kids, first paintings, sisterly collaboration and eating vegan:

Vanessa Prager's Smoke, 2011, oil on linen

Alex: Okay, when did you start painting and why?
Vanessa: When I was 19. Seriously, sometimes I can't even believe all the years I spent without! Remember I was really bad at drawing when I was younger?

A: I wouldn't say really bad!
V: Yeah it was bad, really stiff and I was trying so hard to get it right but it just wasn't. I used to sit next to mom while she drew faces and I couldn't for the life of me figure it out. Not until I was 16 did I even start to draw with any skill.

A: Well, we used to act when we were kids--it paid our way through some of our private schooling.
V: Yeah, but I wouldn't say those commercials I did took an artist's touch. My talents more lied in building forts, drawing with that neon puffy glue on t-shirts and using that crazy device that let you draw tons of ellipses in a big circle over and over again. We built the best forts in history out of that brown couch by the way.

A: Yeah, that was fun. Well, what was the first painting you ever made?
V: I did my first painting when we lived in that apartment on Beachwood. Technically I was okay. I got caught at his hands, it just kind of fades out there.

A: Why did you start painting?
V: Mainly because I wanted to work bigger and use more color than my pencils would allow. After using straight graphite for a while I tried colored pencil and oil pastels, but it wasn't good enough. Someone suggested oils, I think it was you!

Paintings by Vanessa Prager

A: Alright, tell me something I wouldn't expect that has inspired your art.
V: You must suspect... but electronics from anytime before the 90's, especially ones that emit light. Old televisions especially, and things like clock radios, computers, toasters. They have this weird deadened kind of life about them, as if they have numbed personalities, you know?

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The off-site fitness trend continues to lure die-hard exercisers who have become enlightened to the benefits of a pool-side cooldown post-workout. After successful sold-out retreats at the One&Only Ocean Club in the Bahamas, Physique 57 is extending its four-day retreats to One&Only's Palmilla beach resort on Mexico's Baja Penninsula in Los Cabos later this summer. When not strengthening their cores at the two daily Physique classes, guests can reward themselves with the gastronomic delights of the Jean Georges Vongerichten-led Market or indulge in a facial or body treatment in a private treatment villa at the resort's renowned ESPA Spa. (For those who prefer the Bahamas, One&Only Ocean Club has also added new dates, starting in early December.) pamilla.oneandonlyresorts.com

In like a lion, out like a lamb. So the month of March is supposed to go and so, too, one might gather, the New York spring social season. Well, not when one of its final events is El Museo’s 2011 Gala, honoring photographer Mario Testino. Guests at Cipriani 42nd Street Thursday night were seemingly so hyped up about the much-anticipated evening they needed a drink to calm down (or in some cases, perhaps one to amp them up for a final charity circuit hurrah).

Mario Testino

“Let’s head to the bar,” said one woman to her husband upon entering.

“That’s exactly what I need,” he said.

“Where did you get that Bellini?” queried Bettina Zilkha to the designers Carly Cushnie and Michelle Ochs.

The girls had gotten theirs from a bar hidden at the end of a long, snaking red carpet and step and repeat.

“It’s your reward for doing the line,” joked Cushnie.

Only one lady seemed timid about her beverage choice.

“Not with the drink, it’s very tacky!” she trilled at a photographer as he tried to snap her picture.

From left: Courtney Love and Mario Testino; Yaz Hernandez and Josh Hartnett

She was clearly the only one with such an attitude—at an event like this, how could anyone be embarrassed about having a wee bit of a good time? In the side room off the main dining area, Carolyn Murphy, Gucci Westman, Fe Fendi, Crystal Renn, Arlenis Sosa, John Legend and a phalanx of editors mixed with many feather bedecked ladies, one of whom declared to her conversation partner, “I am the Pisco sour lady, the president of Pisco sour,” before handing the woman her card, offering her a “Pisco tour” of New York City. The festivities had even drawn a hermit-like Josh Hartnett, fresh off a movie shoot in India, out of his anti-social haze.

“I wasn’t in this sort of realm at all and I wouldn’t be out for anybody else,” he said of Testino. “He’s very easy to shoot with, he makes the experience like a party.”

A few steps above him in a quasi VIP area, Kate Winslet (who snuck in unnoticed, skipping the red carpet) chatted with Anna Wintour, Carine Roitfeld and Stephen Gan had a tete a tete, Prabal Gurung posed with Joan Smalls for photos and the man of the hour Testino seemed to still be recovering from the rigors of the red carpet.

“I just did one hour in that line,” he said apologetically as he ducked any questions. “I need a drink.”

The gong had already rung for dinner, so he popped behind the vacant bar and poured himself an inch or two on the rocks.

The evening’s speeches were briskly delivered as guests ate their goat cheese and beets appetizers at baroquely romantic tables, bedecked with long high, candelabras and lush roses.

The El Museo del Barrio chair Tony Bechara, introduced Gala chairs Alex Gonzalez and Yaz Hernandex, who related how Gonzalez had brought up Testino to her a year ago after a gala which had honored Placido Domingo.

“But he’s Italian, why would we honor him?” she recalled telling him (El Museo del Barrio, in case it wasn’t evident from the name, is a Latino organization). “He told me, “He’s Peruvian, though he may look Italian sometimes.’”

Winslet then took to the podium to speak about Testino.

From left: Donatella Versace; Kate Winslet, Valentin and Yaz Hernandez

“Kate Middleton and Kate Moss weren’t available, so I’m afraid you’re stuck with this Kate,” she said self-deprecatingly, saying of Testino, “We know he will talk us into doing absolutely anything for him. And why? Because we trust him. Not only because he is capable of surrounding himself with beautiful assistants who help keep us focused. So when he says ‘It’s beautiful, but it would be better naked, no?’ How can one say no?”

“Well first of all, it’s not my fault that all the people born in England are Kate,” countered Testino as accepted his Lifetime Artistic Achievement Award. “People think it’s funny that I cast for assistants. But I do. I think it’s very important to have good-looking people around me. Then the girl feels beautiful.”

One such girl is Donatella Versace, who admitted she had been seduced by Testino’s charms seven years ago on a shoot.

“He makes me go in my house and stand up in the bathtub in all my clothes,” she said. “I never thought I would do such a thing, but with Mario, he makes you do anything.”

Photos: Neil Rasmus/ BFA

The beloved portraitist opens her first show in Paris tonight, at Gagosian on rue de Ponthieu. Naturally, she’s brought her flock with her, including persons of interest Kanye West and Justin Bieber, as well as artist-pals like Nate Lowman, Klara Liden, Rirkrit Tiravanija, and the timeless muse Patti Smith—all painted and drawn in Peyton’s typically bold, expressive strokes.

Patti, 2011. Color pencil on paper.

Isa (Isa Genzken 1980), 2010. Oil on panel.

Elizabeth Peyton at Gagosian Gallery, 4 rue de Ponthieu, Paris. May 27 — July 28.

All works © Elizabeth Peyton. Courtesy Gagosian Gallery

As a Richard Neutra fanatic (and the owner of a place in need of a little more curb appeal), I love these house numbers inspired by the late California architect and made by Heath Ceramics in collaboration with House Industries. Based in Sausalito, California, Heath also produces a range of wares for the home that look just as beautiful and beautifully textured — or, as co-owner Robin Petravic describes them, “imperfectly perfect.”

Available from June 1. $38 each; heathceramics.com

Jane Birkin’s cropped crochet top in this shot of Serge Gainsbourg photographing his muse at the 1969 Cannes Film Festival (above) is the perfect inspiration for summer’s homespun offerings. Not one to bare extreme midriff off the beach? Try Salvatore Ferragamo’s earth-toned crochet tank dress or easy accessories like J.Crew’s Tisbury bucket bag and Ralph Lauren’s espadrilles to channel Birkin’s French Riviera style.

Milly crochet dress, $595, at net-a-porter.com

Lisa Maree striped crochet bikini, $120, at net-a-porter.com.

J.Crew Tisbury bucket bag, $49.50, at jcrew.com

Ralph Lauren wedges, $295, at net-a-porter.com

Salvatore Ferragamo's crochet dress, $5,900, and bag, $2,690, at Salvatore Ferragamo boutiques, 800 628 8916, ferragamo.com

Photos: Net-a-porter: courtesy Net-a-Porter.com; Ferragamo: courtesy Ferragamo: Jane Birkin: Getty Images

When the jitney is far too pedestrian and any old charter won't do, now there’s the new StndAIR seaplane from André Balazs and The Standard Hotel, making its first flight today and running through October 10.

True to Standard form, the cherry-red Cessna 208 Caravan Amphibian aircraft takes it a step further than peanuts and soda: on-board there’s André Balazs Rose, Sweedish Fish, StnAir Branded water, and a Standard flight greeter at departure and arrival. The plane is available for charter to any East Coast destination within a 300-mile radius of New York (Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard, Cape Cod, Hudson Valley) and offers scheduled flights during peak times between New York City and East Hampton. Package deals will also be offered to Standard New York and Sunset Beach hotel guests. One caveat? The plane only seats 8, so you might need to book a few round trips to accommodate your clam bake guests.

And if booking on Expedia is too banal, StndAIR offers a uniquely competitive pricing model for select flights (and by competitive, we don’t mean comparable with big-name airlines): the first person to book a ticket receives the lowest price and there’s a sliding price scale that increases as more people sign up, the first group to fill a flight to one location gets the confirmed charter. Our advice? Get seven of your friends to book immediately—you don’t want a faster group stealing your charter.

To book, head to stndair.com, email reservations@stndair.com, or call 855-STND-AIR between 8am and 8pm.

Pinned to the taffeta confections of countless prom-goers, corsages could be considered a bit démodé—but then, that’s just what Marco Zanini, the creative director of Rochas, finds so intriguing about them. “They’re a very fine balance between old and new, good and bad, cool and uncool,” he explains. Needless to say, the silk peonies in his spring show, which were inspired by a swatch of fabric from 1917 and handmade by the French flower craftsman Lemarié, are notable exceptions. Affixed to just about any ensemble, they appear incredibly chic.

Price upon request, rochas.com