The World Won’t Listen
Phil Collins
Yale University Press
Edited by Suzanne Weaver; with contributions by Bruce Hainley, Liz Kotz, and Simon Reynolds
English
Hardcover (with cardboard slipcase)
132 pages
275x210mm
2008
ISBN 9780300132922
British artist Phil Collins 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 favourite 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.
About the Artist
Phil Collins was born in Runcorn, England. In 1994, he graduated from the University of Manchester. After studying film theory at Royal Holloway, University of London, he joined Max Factory, the London-based performance group, which performed all over the United Kingdom. In 1998, he moved to Belfast, where he studied at the College of Art and Design under Alistair Maclennan and Willie Doherty. Collins’s work investigates the ambivalent relationship with the camera as both an instrument of attraction and manipulation; he frequently uses forms of low-budget television and reportage style. Collins is represented by Kerlin Gallery in Dublin and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery in New York. He currently lives and works in Berlin.
About the Authors
Suzanne Weaver is the Nancy and Tim Hanley Associate Curator of Contemporary Art at the Dallas Museum of Art. Bruce Hainley is a L.A.-based writer and contributing editor of Artforum. Liz Kotz is assistant professor of comparative literature at the University of Minnesota. Simon Reynolds is a music critic and author.
About the Publisher
Founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day, and his wife, Wilhelmina, Yale University Press is one of the oldest and largest American University Presses.
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