
You’ll Never Work In This Town Again, 2009 - Phil Collins
about this work
To accompany the group exhibition Double Agent in 2008, Phil Collins has made the photographic print You’ll Never Work In This Town Again (2009) for the ICA, featuring two of the images from his series you’ll never work in this town again (2004—on-going), which is a series of photographic portraits of curators, critics, dealers, collectors and other figures in the art world—photographed on the understanding that the image would be taken immediately after the artist had slapped each sitter hard around the face. The work can be seen both as a pre-emptive strike by the artist towards those who have the capacity to make or break his career, and as a shared moment of intimacy, while also revealing the narcissism of those who want to be in a work of art—even if it means physical pain. The photographs on show were all taken in London in 2006. Collins has chosen to present the two images as a diptych on a single sheet.