September 08 – August 08, 2005

Opening reception: September 8, 6–8 pm

Lora Reynolds Gallery is pleased to present, in collaboration with Cinematexas, the US premiere of el mundo no escuchará (the world won't listen) by UK artist Phil Collins.

El mundo no escuchará began with Collins placing flyers throughout Bogotá, Columbia, soliciting participation for a karaoke recreation of the 1987 Smiths album the world won't listen. The flyers invite the shy, the dissatisfied, the narcissistic, the shower super-stars and anyone wanting to be someone else for a night to collaborate in Collins conceptual piece. The final exhibit, a video and flyer installation, captures the performers singing along to karaoke tracks recorded by local musicians.

As in many of his works, Collins has chosen a location affected by political unrest with the intention of creating an environment that ignores the political condition of his collaborators. His use of tropical sunset and Mediterranean landscape backdrops disassociate the performers from their native terrain and transport them to a Western notion of utopia. The end result negates the perpetuation of a stereotype and presents a community of individuals whose images have a voice of their own.

Phil Collins was born in 1970 in Runcorn, England. Though based in Belfast, in the past five years Collins has lived and worked in numerous locations including New York, Bogotá, Belgrade and Baghdad. His work has been shown in numerous exhibitions internationally and is included in many private and public collections in the US and Europe including the Tate Gallery, London and Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin.

Lora Reynolds Gallery would like to thank Ralph McKay, Cinematexas, Sinisa Mitrovic, and Darragh Hogan of the Kerlin Gallery for their help in making this exhibition possible.