Phil Collins

Curator: Cheryl Sim

Since the late 1990s, artist Phil Collins has developed a rich body of work across a range of social practices, communities, and geographies to explore how we participate in and understand popular culture. Over the years, his projects have brought us closer to, amongst others, the youth of Baghdad, Kosovan-Albanian refugees, Palestinian disco-dancers, and teachers of Marxism-Leninism from the former German Democratic Republic. What is revealed by the artist’s approach, rooted in an ethos of connection and exchange with people and places, is a nuanced complex of relations embedded in the representational regimes and economies that shape everyday existence, sometimes amidst social or political upheaval. The Montréal public was first introduced to Collins’s work in 2017 with the presentation of his installation free fotolab as part of the Foundation’s group exhibition L’OFFRE. This time, the Foundation dedicates its spaces at 465 Saint-Jean Street to a solo exhibition that focuses on the paramount role of music in Collins’s artistic practice.
 
the world won’t listen (2004-2007), a three-part video installation that takes as its musical text the 1987 compilation of the same name by The Smiths, features fans in Colombia, Turkey, and Indonesia as they perform vocals to each song on the album in a series of individual karaoke sessions. Embracing, transforming, and forging new meanings from the songs’ lyrics, their passionate performances gain a new urgency in the light of the continued far-right and anti-immigrant rhetoric espoused by Morrissey, former Smiths frontman.
 
The single-channel film the meaning of style (2011) features a group of anti-fascist Malay skinheads whom Collins encountered in Penang. Fascinated by their adoption of this typically British subculture—originally formulated in the 1960s as an expression of sympathy between Anglo and Caribbean working-class youth—he films them in a series of languorous tableaux set to a dreamlike soundtrack by Welsh musician Gruff Rhys and the band Y Niwl, which reveal the universal desire to belong while staking out zones and modes of independence.
 
In 2013, Collins collaborated with guests of Gulliver Survival Station for the Homeless in Cologne, Germany. In the center’s cafe, a phone booth was installed with a free line that anyone could use for unlimited local or international calls, on the agreement that conversations would be recorded and made anonymous. Selected calls were posted to international musicians, such as David Sylvian, Lætitia Sadier, and Scritti Politti, serving as the starting point for original new tracks. The resulting sound installation, entitled my heart’s in my hand, and my hand is pierced, and my hand’s in the bag, and the bag is shut, and my heart is caught (2013), consists of six specially designed listening booths that each contains a collection of original songs pressed on 7-inch vinyls.
 
Originating as a public art project, Bring Down The Walls looked at the prison-industrial complex in the United States through house music and nightlife. The project consisted of a communal space that functioned as an open school by day and dance club by night, as well as a benefit album of classic house tracks re-recorded by formerly incarcerated vocalists and electronic musicians. As the world premiere for the exhibition at the Phi Foundation, Collins presents an installation reconfigured for the Montréal context and the space at 465 Saint-Jean Street, with corresponding public programming that will build on the discussions and relationships that began in New York.
 
The works in this exhibition explore the emancipatory power of music to transcend time and space, disparate geographies, ethnicity, class, and language, while remaining critical of its entanglement with uneven power dynamics and the political economy of culture. Through Collins’s empathic lens and love of a good song, we are offered access to a deeper sense of what it means to relate to one another.

The Istanbul iteration of the world won’t listen was commissioned by the 9th International Istanbul Biennial. the meaning of style was commissioned by Open House, Singapore Biennale 2011. my heart’s in my hand, and my hand is pierced, and my hand’s in the bag, and the bag is shut, and my heart is caught was  originally produced for an exhibition  at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, and supported by the Akademie der Künste der Welt, Cologne and HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin. Bring Down The Walls was commissioned by Creative Time, New York. 

Phil Collins is a visual artist and filmmaker based in Berlin and Wuppertal, Germany. His practice, which explores the intersections of art, politics and popular culture, has been recognised for its engagement with social reality and lived experience. Collins is Professor of Video and Performance at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne.

Phi Foundation for Contemporary Art
Established in 2007 by Phoebe Greenberg, the Phi Foundation for Contemporary Art, formerly known as DHC/ART, is a non-profit organization dedicated to the presentation of contemporary art. Housed in two heritage buildings Located in the heart of Old Montréal, the Foundation offers programming that has met with critical acclaim both at home and around the world. Each year, the Phi Foundation presents two to three major exhibitions, a series of public events, special collaborative projects and a forward-thinking education and public engagement program. International in scope yet responsive to the Montréal context, the Foundation’s programming is offered free of charge to reinforce its commitment to accessibility, while fostering discussion on how contemporary art is invested with the topics and ideas that reflect and touch our everyday lives.

Phi Foundation for Contemporary Art
451 & 465 Saint-Jean Street (at Notre-Dame Street, Old Montreal)
Montréal, Quebec, H2Y 2R5
Canada

Opening hours:
Wednesday to Friday from noon to 7pm
Saturday and Sunday from 11am to 6pm
Free Admission

Accessibility: Partially Accessible

Information
T 514-849-3742
info [​at​] phi-foundation.org
www.phi-foundation.org

Media inquiries:
Myriam Achard
machard [​at​] phi-foundation.org
T (514) 844-7474 #5104