Phil Collins: The World Won't Listen

by Suzanne Weaver (Editor), Sinisa Mitrovic (Editor), Bruce Hainley (Contributor)

British artist Phil Collins (b. 1970) uses films, photographs, and installations to explore the mediating power of culture and possibilities of personal expression in areas that are facing political conflict and change around the world, such as Pakistan, Serbia, Iraq, and Northern Ireland. This cutting-edge publication offers fresh perspectives on the expanding possibilities of art in the global age and focuses on Collins’s most recent work the world won’t listen, an international three-part video installation project begun in 2004.  In Bogota, Istanbul, and Jakarta, the artist filmed fans performing karaoke versions of their favorite tracks from The World Won’t Listen, an enduring 1987 album by British indie-pop icons The Smiths. With multi-disciplinary essays and a revealing interview with the artist on his creative process, this book provides a highly compelling and critical study of the intersection of art history, popular culture, and music in Collins’s innovative project and demonstrates why he was recently voted one of the ten most important artists working today.




Distributed for the Dallas Museum of Art


Exhibition Schedule:

Dallas Museum or Art (October 21, 2007 – March 30, 2008)

132 pages, Hardcover

First published November 28, 2007

Reviews

[Lara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great presentation, but I was very underwhelmed by the three essays included--one about the Smiths, one about the cultural influence of the Smiths, and one about Collins's art and video art in general. I had trouble with some of their word choices, and I felt like I was reading some pretentious college kid's papers--you know, deliberately obtuse and far wordier than necessary, without actually saying a whole lot. But maybe that's just me; these folks are professionals, after all. Anyway, the transcript of a video interview with Phil Collins at the end more than made up for the (in my opinion) less than stellar essays. He answers a lot of the questions I had about the exhibit, and I found him intelligent and interesting. I think I was just expecting more from this than I got--what I was really hoping for was an in-depth explanation of the process of putting together the exhibition. Collins did give a brief overview of it during his interview, but...there were just still a lot of other things I wanted to know. It sure is a great looking coffee table book though!