We know about the Latino Morrissey fans in California and Texas, and that he's got a following in Mexico too, but in South America, they are just as devout. Phil Collins (no, he doesn't play drums), photographer, went to Bogota, Colombia's capital, and advertised for "the shy, the dissatisfied, the narcissistic, the shower superstars and anyone who wants to be someone else for a night" to perform Smiths karaoke from The World Won't Listen (or in Spanish, El mundo no escuchara). His plea was broadcast on posters pasted up around the city, and the posters cover the small room where the film is shown, becoming part of the piece. The bizarre thing for me was the context I saw it in - at Manchester's City Art Gallery. Outside it was raining, and in the darkness of the viewing room I sat next to someone (I couldn't tell their gender - it was dark and I didn't like to stare) who wore a pair of large black rimmed "Stop Me If You've Think You've Heard This One Before" glasses. We sat silently and anonymously side-by-side watching Colombians in Smiths T-shirts sing in front of backdrops of palm trees and cypress-surrounded villas.
Karaoke values enthusiasm over talent, which is certainly true of the performances in this film - but that's the point, and that's what's so charming. It demonstrates the performance of fandom - that there is no criteria for being a fan; all you need is love and enthusiasm.
Each fan takes the mike (not Joyce) and sings. Despite many of them being unable to speak to English, their surprisingly accurate pronunciations show how many times they've danced round their bedrooms, singing along to the album into a hairbrush. Any fan in the world will watch these performances and, instead of feeling different from the Colombians, they will instead feel profound identification - that despite the different continents we might live in, people are united by music. The bad singing made me giggle, but not to patronise their performances - instead, it was an open-hearted cry of "You're just like me!" In the case of the bob-haired girl in the red dress, it was also mild shock as I think we may have been separated at birth.
The fans in the video come in different moulds - the punky kid who gyrates with glee while stroking the flowers painted on the backdrop, the two women who sing "There is a Light That Never Goes Out" while dandling a wide-eyed podgy-faced baby who resembles a pixie more than a child, the two lads who assume serious faces while running through their collection of albums and magazines to "Oscillate Wildly", the crazed pogo-ing of one fan through "London", the subtle lyric changes - "Is there any point in ever having children? - YES, DEFINITELY!" (which made everyone watching it laugh, showing the connection made by the film between the performers and the audience), the woman who hides her face in a Luchador's mask, the sincere boys who sing faithfully through their allotted song, the oddly glamorous woman who looks like a tranny - some dance as they sing in Morrissey-style, hand-on-heart, saint-like eyes raised questioningly to the sky, assuming 'Morrissey' as a Luchador mask, and providing proof that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. All to a karaoke music track that Collins had made by Colombian musicians, which brings out a latent flamenco style from Johnny Marr's guitar.
It's fun and affectionate, and touched me in a way that most contemporary art fails to. In galleries, I'm usually found gazing at the Pre-Raphaelites, lost in the melodrama and melancholy. At the Tate Modern in 2004 I saw a toilet made from urine-coloured plastic and I laughed - inducing rude glares from the black-roll-neck-and-rectangular-glasses-wearing-"culture-vulturing-city-slickers". There's an attitude that art should make you stroke your chin, whereas I have always, and only, loved art that touches me and makes a deep, preternatural connection - whether that be laughter, awe or tears. This is just what El mundo no escuchara did to me - it was as if part of my DNA had ended up in the celluloid, mixed with everyone else's.
Of course, I can't discuss El mundo no escuchara objectively - what non-fans would make of it, I have no idea. I suspect, unfortunately, that they'll only roll their eyes at the bad singing, wonder how the people in the video can be smiling "because Smiths fans are miserable" and stride away proud for not doing something so undignified in public themselves. The piece, I think, says something very important about modern culture, and in doing that, about the very world we live in. The public confessional of kiss'n'tell tabloid tales, the enervating penetration of docusoaps and chat shows impinges on the way you might experience this work - the fans declare their love of The Smiths to the world, unphased by the fact that they can't sing, even though they'll be mocked: even though they know that the world won't listen.
A very good review, including photos, can be found at the ARTL!ES website by clicking here.
Visit the British Art Show 6 website here.
What's a 'luchador'? Find out here.
