Phil Collins : Marxism Today

4 Feb-10 Apr 2011

Overview

Phil Collins' works in film, video and photography deftly dissect the political and aesthetic implications of popular visual formats, and often provide a platform for the disregarded and the overlooked. Shining a light on what is generally perceived as the losing side in the political and social upheavals of the past two decades, marxism today is an ongoing project that began by following the fortunes of former teachers of Marxism-Leninism in Communist East Germany. Collins' short film marxism today (prologue) (2010), first shown at the 6th Berlin Biennale, mixes contemporary interviews alongside archive material in which snapshots of life in the old GDR are offset with the teachers' own recollections of the time, and their contrasting experiences after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Contemplative, engaging and affecting, the film is supplemented by a new companion video, use! value! exchange! (2010), that revisits key concepts in the toolkit of Marxist economic analysis, and introduces them, with exemplary vigour and concision, to a new generation of students.