Phil Collins: The World Won't Listen

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.

Exhibition Schedule:

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

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.