Phil Collins’ ability to find entertainment value in social conflict is stronger than ever in his third New York solo exhibition, in which a soap opera and amateur snapshots become lowbrow delivery mechanisms for universal truths.Soy mi madre, a telenovela-style tale of class struggle steals the show, while a subtler, voyeuristic installation of amateur photos shot by residents of several European cities is a low-key paean to everyday life.Melodrama contrasts the mundane, but each elaborates convincingly on the complexities of human relations.
Soy mi Madre is a tour de force of upper class dysfunction and working class resentment, featuring a pampered lady of the house whose hilariously quick and frequent mood swings are matched by rapid-fire clichés that paint her husband as a lecherous alcoholic and her as mentally fragile, cold and ruthless.By the end, a pistol-wielding servant declares the house’s social order irrevocably changed and one wonders if this video, commissioned by Aspen Art Museum to broaden an audience that includes the area’s immigrant workforce, has the power to alter real life labor relations in ritzy Aspen or beyond.
Free Photolab, a slide projection of selected images by amateur 35mm film users who gave Collins the rights to their images in exchange for free processing, involves exploitation of a softer sort.As photojournalism by proxy, the project provides cheap source material for Collins and more than a few gratuitous glimpses of oddballs or exhibitionists for us.But the collective result – mostly portraits of friends and family at special occasions – has an eerie familiarity echoing common experiences and recalling Nan Goldin’s intimacy, Juergen Teller’s seediness, and Jamel Shabazz’s sassy posers.Several consecutive slides present jarring contrasts (a pregnant belly, then a funeral) but the pictures’ surprising strength is in their poignant take on universal experience.
Originally published in Flash Art International, no 267, July – September, 2009.