English Magic by Jeremy Deller A learning resource for teachers and group leaders to accompany the 2014 touring exhibition
The William Morris Gallery, London 18 January – 30 March 2014
Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, Bristol 12 April – 21 September 2014
Turner Contemporary, Margate 11 October 2014 – 11 January 2015
A Good Day for Cyclists, painted by Sarah Tynan
English Magic was commissioned by the British Council and the UK tour is supported by the Art Fund.
This learning resource was written by Liz Ellis, artist and educationalist, in consultation with staff from William Morris Gallery, Waltham Forest, Bristol Museum and Art Gallery and Turner Contemporary, Margate and the British Council.
January 2014
1 The venues
William Morris Gallery, London
Housed in a fine Georgian building, which was once the home of William Morris, the Gallery explores the life and work of Morris as designer, author, businessman and political activist. It was extensively refurbished in 2012 and was the winner of the Art Fund Prize for Museum of the Year 2013.
Open Wed – Sun 10 am – 5 pm Tues for schools/groups by appointment Admission free
William Morris Gallery Lloyd Park, Forest Road, Walthamstow, London E17 4PP wmgallery.org.uk
Bristol Museum & Art Gallery, Bristol
Housing over 20 galleries with world-class collections of art, archaeology, geology and natural history, Bristol Museum & Art Gallery has been a cultural landmark of the city since 1905.
Open Mon – Fri 10 am – 5 pm Weekends & bank holiday Mondays 10 am – 6 pm Admission free
Bristol Museum & Art Gallery Queens Road, Bristol BS8 1RL bristol.gov.uk/museums
Turner Contemporary, Margate
Turner Contemporary is a dynamic visual arts organisation that believes in making art open, relevant and fulfilling for all. Inspired by J.M.W. Turner’s sense of enquiry, it offers a space for everyone to embrace their curiosity and to discover different ways of seeing, thinking and learning.
Open Tues – Sun and bank holidays 10 am – 6 pm Admission free
Turner Contemporary Rendezvous, Margate, Kent CT9 1HG turnercontemporary.org
2 Contents
1 How to use this learning resource P 4
2 Introduction to the English Magic exhibition P 5
A Jeremy Deller B The Biennale C What is English Magic? D The role of artist as collaborator
3 Four key themes: P 8
A Identity and Englishness B Fairness and Social Justice C Accountability and Protest D Popular Culture
4 Four key works and linked gallery activities P 11
A Key work 1: The filmEnglish Magic B Key work 2: The mural We sit starving amidst our gold C Key work 3: The mural St. Helier on fire 2017 plus banners based on diagrams of tax avoidance D Key work 4: William Morris artefacts
5 Suggestions for activities after your visit with a range of key stages and community audiences P 20
6 Further information P 23
A More about Jeremy Deller’s life and work B Jeremy Deller and national identity C Jeremy Deller and politics: The Battle of Orgreave
7 Booklist P 26
8 Endnotes P 27 1 How to use this learning resource
This pack has been written for teachers, youth workers and all colleagues involved in broad contexts of learning, including community leaders, adult education tutors and artists.
The contextual information will be useful to staff at all levels for general preparation. The teaching strategies and suggested activities are geared towards secondary and 16 students. An additional section aimed at the primary age range will be added in due course.
Please use this pack to support your own learning, in preparing either for an independent gallery visit with your group or a taught workshop, and also to support you in planning your responses and follow up learning activities after visiting the exhibition.
For example, in using this pack, if you are an art teacher, we suggest you discuss this pack and exhibition with colleagues teaching English, Politics, History or Geography. Consider developing shared gallery visits and lesson plans, thus enabling richer engagement with the broad exhibition themes of identity and Englishness, popular culture and political history.
If you are a youth worker, community leader or adult education tutor working in informal learning contexts, we suggest you discuss this exhibition and share skills with colleagues who may be building local, democratic networks linked with housing, health or sport, through voluntary groups, charities, co-ops etc.
4 2 Introduction to the English Magic exhibition
English Magic is contemporary, witty and often unexpected. The complex works in the exhibition offer significant, exciting opportunities for audiences of all ages to share opinions, express disagreement, build critical thinking capacities and gain skills in exercising freedom of speech and cultural rights. We hope you will find opportunities to do so with your group.
A Jeremy Deller
The artist was born in London in 1966, trained as an art historian and has won international recognition. His artwork spans a variety of media, from installations, processions and posters to documentary films, exploring broad themes such as identity, popular culture and social justice. He won the Turner Prize in 2004 and is now probably most well-known for creating the giant inflatable Stonehenge work,Sacrilege , as part of the 2012 Cultural Olympiad celebrations.
5 B The Biennale
The British Pavilion, Venice Biennale 2013
The Biennale is an international art festival which runs every other year in Venice, Italy. Over 475,000 visitors attend the Biennale each year, to view exciting contemporary art from all over the world. In 2013 Deller was commissioned by the British Council to represent Britain at the 55th International Art Exhibition (La Biennale di Venezia). This exhibition was displayed in Venice from June-November 2013, and in 2014 is touring to three UK venues: the William Morris Gallery, London, the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery and Turner Contemporary, Margate. Most of the work exhibited at the Venice Biennale is displayed in each of the venues, with some changes due to venue size and subject matter.
C What is English Magic?
Sacrilege, commissioned as part of the 2012 Cultural Olympiad celebrations and featured in the filmEnglish Magic
6 English Magic reflects the roots of much of Deller’s work, focusing on British society. It includes people, icons, myths, folklore and cultural and political history and addresses events from the past, present and an imagined future. Deller works with a varied range of collaborators including archaeologists, musicians, bird handlers, prisoners and painters.
Deller has talked about the title English Magic as referring to different types of magic, ‘good’ and ‘bad’.1 He has said that the ‘bad’ magic contains elements of ‘concealment and trickery’. Deller employs funny and playful ideas drawn from his imagination, including an inflatable Stonehenge and a steel band playing the music of David Bowie, Ralph Vaughan Williams and A Guy Called Gerald. At the same time, he introduces us to ideas of ‘bad magic’ with explicit imagery of ‘vengeance and destruction’, including a mural of William Morris wreaking revenge on a Russian oligarch’s super yacht and banners depicting contemporary methods of tax avoidance by an international supermarket.
In the five minute introductory video,2 Deller describes the English Magic film as the ‘glue’ between the different rooms of the exhibition, with the steel band music of the film’s soundtrack influencing our experience as we walk through the exhibition displays.
D The role of artist as collaborator
Working collaboratively has always been central to Deller’s work. In English Magic, the role of music is one example of the layering of ideas which informs his practice. Steel band musicians transpose a range of musical styles and contemporary artists paint murals in each of the exhibition venues. Other collaborators in the exhibition include a banner maker, historians from the Museum of London, film makers, musicians and prisoners who are also ex-soldiers. He also uses artefacts ranging in age from ancient Palaeolithic times to 19th century examples of craft and design by William Morris.
The painter Stuart Sam Hughes, commissioned by Deller to paint two of the wall murals in each of the exhibition venues, has spoken of how Deller initially approached him in 2003 to paint a tea urn, having seen Hughes’ customised motorbikes.3 Since then, Hughes and Deller have collaborated on many exhibitions, including English Magic where the starting instruction can be as brief as ‘paint me a street’. The finished murals are created out of a process that involves conversation, sketches and photos as well as much negotiation and discussion.
7 3 Four key themes
A Identity and Englishness
Throughout his career Deller has constantly questioned what being English means, asking us to consider how our ideas about British identity have changed over time. While you explore English Magic, be aware of how Deller is not asking us to agree with each other or reach consensus. Rather he is more interested in how and in what ways we agree and disagree with each other, whilst noticing and being aware of these differences.
English Magic explores a non-utopian4 vision of Britain. For example, the hand painted mural St Helier on fire 2017by Stuart Sam Hughes, shows an imagined view of St Helier in Jersey (a place famous for enabling companies and rich people to avoid British tax laws) set alight by protestors enraged by inequality. Within the English Magic film, a Range Rover, an English car (with strong associations of upper class wealth), is shown in the process of being destroyed and crushed in a scrap yard.
Deller reminds us throughout this exhibition that notions of ‘identity’ and ‘Englishness’ are immensely complex, with each of us contributing our own differing beliefs and ideas. With Deller’s own training as an art historian, he is acutely aware of the debates around identity and that, as cultural theorist Stuart Hall warns, ‘Englishness is a shifty and dangerous signifier’, vulnerable to exploitation by politicians and more extreme ‘nationalists’.5
B Fairness and Social Justice
‘My work is really either things that bother me or things that I like.’ Jeremy Deller6
Deller often uses particular events to highlight the frustration he feels at unfairness and injustice. Throughout his career, he has collaborated with others concerned with issues of justice, including hundreds of those involved in the miners’ strikes in the 1980s — events that are still hugely contested in British politics and cultural memory. (See the Further Information section at the end of this pack for more works by Deller on these themes, including Battle of Orgreave (2001).)
In English Magic, Deller comments on the build-up of huge personal wealth; he critiques the way that the wealthy wield power and influence over others, as well as the perceived double standards that exist between classes. Examples of this within the exhibition would include the ability of a British Royal or a Russian Oligarch to apparently behave in ways that would not be acceptable for the ordinary citizen.
8 C Accountability and Protest
The democratic rights of protest and freedom of speech are core themes for Deller and are often explored in collaboration with others. English Magic includes several handmade banners by Ed Hall that depict diagrams of tax avoidance structures, such as ‘transfer pricing’ and the ‘Jersey cash box’.7 These banners relate to the St Helier on firemural by Stuart Sam Hughes; Deller imagines they will be carried at this demonstration by protestors angry about tax avoidance and demanding accountability.
Tony Blair by Eddie, HMP Everthorpe, 2013
Prisoners’ drawings of political figures and experiences of conflict also feature inEnglish Magic, further entwining issues of power, democracy and our understanding of culture. Many of the prisoners are ex-soldiers who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. The drawings include portraits of major players in the conflict e.g.( Tony Blair) alongside depictions of day-to-day life in the British army. Deller collaborated with The Koestler Trust, a charity that uses art to assist with rehabilitation in prisons, to work with these prisoners.
For more information on how these works explore themes of social injustice click here.8
9 D Popular Culture
Deller is a huge music fan and has constantly referred to this passion in his work. The music of David Bowie, and in particular Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust UK tour of 1972–73, is an important part of English Magic.9
Deller draws our attention to the political and social events taking place in the UK while Bowie was on tour. A large map of the UK, painted directly on the gallery wall, shows the locations of the tour venues. The map is surrounded by a selection of photographs, taken on dates when Bowie was performing. The photographs show Bowie’s elated fans, but also show scenes relating to the political and economic strife in the UK at the time; images of civil rights demonstrations, IRA bombings and industrial action are included. Deller is connecting music and politics, demonstrations and concert crowds in order to help us understand that our experience of culture is present in all aspects of daily life; it is even present in times of conflict and difference. Deller explores a definition of ‘culture’ that is not limited to the contents of an art gallery, theatre or concert hall.
10 4 Four key works and linked gallery activities
These four selected works in English Magic represent key themes and provide open questions, looking strategies and activity ideas.
A Key work 1: The film English Magic10
Still from the filmEnglish Magic, 2013
This playful, thought-provoking film lasts just over 14 minutes and features a wide range of events including: rare birds of prey, children playing on an inflatable Stonehenge, a Range Rover being crushed at a scrap yard and the Lord Mayor’s Show in London. The film doesn’t have any dialogue, instead it includes a sound track of three pieces of music performed by a steel band: Symphony No.5 in D, 3rd Movement by Vaughan Williams; Voodoo Ray by A Guy Called Gerald; and The Man Who Sold the World by David Bowie. The soundtrack was recorded at the Abbey Road Studios in London, which was made famous by The Beatles.
11 Gallery based activity: Exploring key themes of ‘Identity and Englishness’ and the ‘Role of the artist as collaborator’
Prepare whole group with sketchbooks, pens and paper. Divide the student group into 3 smaller groups, for example 8–10 learners in each group.
1. The first group are to listen to the music used throughout the film, making notes while they listen to share with the whole group at the end.
2. Ask the second group to notice who is collaborating with Jeremy Deller in making this film. Note the locations and participants to share with the group.
3. Ask the third group to consider the title of the film, English Magic, while they watch it. The film was first shown in Venice, throughout the Biennale festival in 2013. Ask the group where they think the magic is.
4. What type of magic is it? Is it ‘good’ magic, ‘bad’ magic, or perhaps a mixture depending on who you are? Do we think differently about the title English Magic in Venice, in London, in Bristol and in Margate?
5. Lead the groups in sharing responses, using flipcharts to make spider grams of links between sound, collaboration and title.
6. Think about collaboration in art: What is the role of the artist? Who should get the credit and for what? If someone else carries out your idea how far is it still yours? How far is it art? Is a ‘conceptual’ artist different from any other sort of artist? William Morris was possibly at the other end of this scale, insisting on the highest standards of craftsmanship and execution, never asking his workers to produce anything that he could not understand and make himself.
7. What is the role of the curator? How far is Deller an artist-curator? How does the way things are placed together affect how we think about them? Think about the choices made by curators when looking round other parts of the museum or gallery.
12 B Key work 2: The mural We sit starving amidst our gold
We sit starving amidst our gold, painted by Stuart Sam Hughes
William Morris is depicted hurling Roman Abramovich’s monstrous luxury yacht into the Venice lagoon. This wall painting references an actual event in Venice in 2011, when the mooring of Abramovich’s yacht prevented public access to the promenade alongside the lagoon, infuriating thousands of Venetian residents and international visitors to the 2011 Biennale. This is one of three murals, the other two being A good day for cyclists and St Helier on fire 2017 (See Key work 3). Deller described these three murals in his interview at the Venice Biennale as being about ‘vengeance… and destruction’.11
13 Gallery based activity: Exploring key themes of ‘Fairness and Social Justice’ and ‘Accountability and Protest’
1. Divide the group into 2 and ask students what they know about the politics and personalities of Morris and Abramovich.
William Morris, 1887
William Morris (England 1834 –1896) was born wealthy and then chose to work as an artist and design manufacturer in ways that sought to redistribute power and wealth through socialism. Through the products of Morris & Co. he aspired to make a beautiful living environment a reality for all, both rich and poor. His bearded features were well known by contemporaries for tireless campaigning and speech-making on behalf of ordinary working people and the preservation of the environment. Many on the political Left still cite him today as an important influence on Socialist thinking and campaigns for social justice. (See key work 4 below.)
Roman Abramovich (Russia 1966) is a billionaire, international entrepreneur and owner of Chelsea Football Club. His girlfriend is a notable art dealer and Abramovich in fact provides extensive financial support to the Venice Biennale. He is one of the most well-known Russian oligarchs, so called because of the enormous power and influence brought by their wealth. This wealth affords them a certain power over and beyond the Russian government, although they themselves were not democratically elected to any position of power.
Most oligarchs gained their wealth in the 1990s through buying up cheap shares in state run industries at a time when the old Socialist regime had crumbled and the Russian government wanted to privatise quickly, in order to help the ailing economy. The oligarchs speculated and profiteered to make huge fortunes while ordinary Russians did not understand — or could not afford — the value of the shares.
14 Deller illustrates this by displaying some original Russian share certificates and vouchers near the ‘Morris’ mural. This is contrasted with a display of Morris artefacts reflecting his commitment to high quality design, to materials and ultimately to his fellow man for whom these objects were made. (See key work 4)
Roman Abramovich, 2013 © PA Images
2. Ask each group to share their findings and then ask the whole group the question:
Why do you think Deller commissioned this wall painting as a key part of the English Magic exhibition?
Conclude by asking the group to discuss these questions:
What is Deller asking us to think about with his ideas of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ magic? What do you notice about the ways he uses fantasy and reality mixed together in these 3 murals which he commissions other artists to paint?
For further context click here.12
15 C Key work 3: The mural St Helier on fire 2017 plus banners based on diagrams of tax avoidance schemes
St Helier on fire 2017, painted by Stuart Sam Hughes
In his interview with the British Council in 2013, Deller talked about how the overall exhibition title English Magic explores good and bad magic, where the bad magic includes ‘concealment and trickery’. This mural, painted by Stuart Sam Hughes, shows a fictitious, future scene in which St Helier, the capital of Jersey, is burned to the ground in 2017. Deller likens the destruction to a ‘medieval sacking’. The fabric banners, made by Ed Hall, show abstract diagrams of tax avoidance schemes.
For a political context to this work click here.13
16 Gallery based activity: Exploring key themes of ‘Fairness and Social Justice’ and ‘Accountability and Protest’
Banners based on diagrams of tax avoidance schemes from the St Helier 2017 demonstration, made by Ed Hall
1. Ask the students to notice how these artworks are made (fabric banners by Ed Hall and a hand painted mural by Stuart Sam Hughes), and why Deller might have chosen to use art and craft skills by other artists to explore social and political issues?
How would our experience of these artworks be different if Deller had used newspaper articles from The Financial Times or The Guardian newspapers, accountants’ reports or academic papers?
2. What do the students know about what taxes are used for in the UK?
Taxes cover costs of the public sector in delivering education, NHS care, the provision and maintenance of roads, street lights, social care, etc. Perhaps you can involve a local councillor in talking to your students about how taxes are used locally?
Do the students think the difference between tax ‘avoidance’ and tax ‘evasion’ is easy to understand? You may want to give further examples of national and international tax avoidance, including Thames Water, Starbucks and Google.
3. Why might these issues make activist organisations like UnCut14 organise local and national demonstrations, campaigning for trans-national companies to pay due taxes?
17 D Key work 4: William Morris artefacts
All objects from the William Morris Gallery collection
Evenlode printed cotton designed by Morris in 1883
Woodblocks for printing the Evenlode cotton design, designed 1883 and made by Morris & Co from fruit wood (probably pear wood), metal and felt inlay. The 12 blocks shown here form part of a larger set of 33 required to complete the fabric print design
18 Membland Hall tile panel, designed by William Morris in 1876 and manufactured by William de Morgan. Slip-covered, hand-painted and glazed earthenware blanks
These will vary according to the venue. At the William Morris Gallery, examples of Morris’s political campaign leaflets will be displayed. Artefacts relating to his design and use of hand-block printing can be seen across the hallway from the exhibition in Gallery 4: The Workshop. This includes a contemporary reconstruction of the separate colour stages of the hand-block printing of his earliest wallpaper design Trellis.
Artefacts on display at Bristol and Margate will be as illustrated here.
There will also be a ‘handling trolley’, which will include an original Morris woodblock and contemporary rubber stamps with which to try out simple relief block printing.
19 Gallery based activity: Exploring the role of artist as collaborator
These examples of art, craft and design by William Morris reflect his own collaborative processes, for example with artist and ceramicist William de Morgan. There is also evidence in these designs of William Morris’s interest and study of the natural world, including birds and plants and his political and ethical belief that everyone is entitled to an equal share of the world’s resources and should respect the environment.
William Morris and his work has been hugely influential for artists, political thinkers, campaigners for social justice and many others throughout the world. Deller has always been interested and influenced by William Morris; ‘I’ve lived with him [Morris] all my life, starting with my parents’ cushions,’ said Deller. ‘He was an extraordinary person: his politics, his writings, the way he humanised the industrial revolution, his interest in beauty. He was a true artist, with incredibly strong beliefs: artists wouldn’t get involved like that today.’15
1. Ask your students if they recognise Morris’s name and if so, for what: design, politics or his writings? What do they associate Morris’s style with? Do they like it?
Today Morris’s designs are widely reproduced on tea-towels, mugs, umbrellas etc. in heritage venues. They have come to be seen as quite traditional, even old-fashioned. However, when Morris started out, his designs were radical and very different to the French-style patterns in vogue in the mid-Victorian era. His use of abstract, 2-dimensional motifs revolutionised British design and led the way for other avant-garde movements, including Art Nouveau.
2. Ask students what they think Deller admires about Morris from what he has put in the show?
20 5 Suggestions for activities after your visit with a range of key stages and community audiences
As we have seen collaboration is core to Deller’s work. Consider using these suggested discussion and activity areas as interdisciplinary teaching plans with colleagues teaching Sport, Music, Citizenship, Politics or History, amongst other possible subject areas. Many of the investigative questions and activities (including A and B) also lend themselves to a youth work context.
We suggest that these activities can culminate in a shared art display, performance, debate, presentation or public event with invited cohorts from other years, youth groups, adult guests, musicians, supporters of UnCut, Amnesty, etc. These outcomes and methods reflect those used by Deller and offer the potential for both those teaching and learning to extend encounters with learning as a continuous relational experience, as opposed only to a singular encounter limited by lesson length or individual curricular demands.
A Suggested discussion questions for primary audiences and youth work contexts
What does it mean to you to be a fan? What do you collect, how do you share your collection and who with (friends, family, others via Facebook etc.)? Looking at Deller’s work, what is he a fan of? What was William Morris a fan of?
B Suggested activity for KS3 and youth work contexts
1. Discuss with your students after visiting the English Magic exhibition how to organise a temporary display of objects (e.g. posters, photos or music) owned by 6 KS3 students in your school/youth work context who are musicians or music fans.
Who do you ask and how do you ask the musicians/fans to be involved, and what can you ask to borrow?
Document your discussion and meetings with the musicians/fans through spidergram drawings on flipcharts, video and drawings. Consider the following questions:
• How and where could you display the loans? • Who will see the display and how can the audience respond to the objects loaned? • Will you play extracts of the selected music as part of the display?
21 2. If you were to ask 6 sports fans in your school/youth club context, what would be different about whom you ask? What you display? Where you show the work?
Deller usually includes all responses to an open call for participation in a particular event, naming and acknowledging all involved. Do you plan to edit the contributions you receive?
C Suggested activity and discussion questions for KS4 in collaboration with History, Politics, English study groups and teaching colleagues
‘The one duty we owe to history is to rewrite it.’ Oscar Wilde16
1. Using the Battle of Orgreave (2001) as a case study (see further notes at the end of this pack for more on this work). Divide students into 3 groups to represent 3 participant groups:
• Those enacting striking miners; • Those enacting police officers; • The audience for this event;
Ask each group to use the Wilde quote above to discuss what aspects of history were re-written by enacting this political event?
2. Present this work to a wider audience (KS3/5?), asking for their responses to this question. Following this event, ask all involved; what did you understand about the meaning of ‘democracy’ before this discussion? Has this changed by being part of your group and hearing others’ views?
D Suggested discussion questions for KS4 in collaboration with Politics/Citizenship study groups and teaching colleagues
Find out more about the British Council. What else does it do as well as promoting British art?
Click here to see the British Council website.17
1. How does promoting art benefit the British economy? Discuss.
2. Why do you think this exhibition represented Britain at the Venice Biennale in 2013?
22 E Suggested discussion questions for KS4 in collaboration with English, Citizenship, History, and Politics study groups and teaching colleagues
1. Following up on themes of identity and Englishness in Deller’s work, ask students to read and discuss the article by political journalist Polly Toynbee, exploring the political and historical themes at the 2012 Olympics Ceremony.18
2. What are the differences in Danny Boyle’s aims and methods in exploring identity and Englishness and those used by Deller?
3. Finally, lead a group discussion on the following question: Why do you think Deller, a contemporary British artist, is interested in asking us to think about democracy and power?
F Suggested research and investigative questions for KS4 and community-based adult learning contexts
1. Find out more about Fluxus,19 Situationism20 and Pussy Riot.21 Where did these artists come from politically and nationally? What artistic and political actions have they taken? For example, the Situationists staged events internationally in the 1960s for the purpose of challenging a society which one of the artists, Guy Debord, saw as being only concerned with the ‘spectacle’.
2. Deller creates situations without being part of this ‘Situationist’ practice. Discuss with the students whether they agree that Deller is more interested in creating a more equal ‘situation’ than the Situationists and Debord for conversations to emerge.
3. What are other differences between these actions and events and Jeremy Deller’s work?
G Suggested research and activity questions for KS4, youth work and community-based adult learning contexts
1. Organise a display or timeline for 1963–2013, showing examples of how and when international artists have collaborated in addressing issues of social change and justice. For example, this could include Félix González-Torres, Yoko Ono, Nancy Spero, Group Material, Tim Rollins and Kids of Survival, Pussy Riot, Art of Change, and Kara Walker.
2. You may also want to discuss with your group how organisations including PEN and Amnesty International represent cultural rights and freedom of expression as universal human rights. Both organisations have active student forums, resources and activities to support these aims.
23 6 Further information
Please note that the works discussed in this section are not in the English Magic exhibition. The works and themes discussed underpin Deller’s practice and methods developed over the last 25 years which subsequently inform English Magic. References to these works can be found in the booklist. Footnotes throughout the pack provide further information for your use and in student research.
A More about Jeremy Deller’s life and work
Open Bedroom, Dulwich, London 1993
Jeremy Deller was born in London in 1966 to middle class parents, both working in the public sector and sharing a strong sense of social justice. He studied Art History at the Courtauld Institute and Sussex University. His first exhibition in 1993,Open Bedroom, was presented in his parents’ house while they were on holiday. He later said that ‘the public world is my studio’.
In 1997, he produced the musical hybrid performance Acid Brass with the traditional Williams-Fairey Brass Band and began making art in collaboration with other people.
In 2000, with fellow artist Alan Kane, Deller began a collection of items that illustrate the passions and pastimes of people from across Britain and the social classes. Treading a fine line between art and anthropology, Folk Archive is a collection of objects which touch on diverse subjects such as Morris dancing, gurning competitions and political demonstrations. The Folk Archive became part of the British Council Collection in 2007 and has since toured to Shanghai, Paris and Milan.
24 In 2001, Deller staged The Battle of Orgreave, commissioned by Artangel and Channel 4, directed by Mike Figgis. The work involved a re-enactment which brought together around 1000 veteran miners and members of historical societies to restage the 1984 clash between miners and police in Orgreave, Yorkshire.
In 2004, Deller won the Turner Prize for Memory Bucket (2003), a documentary about Texas. He has since made a number of documentaries on subjects ranging from the exotic wrestler Adrian Street to the die-hard international fan base of the band Depeche Mode.
In 2009, Deller undertook a road trip across the US, from New York to Los Angeles, towing a car destroyed in a bomb attack in Baghdad and accompanied by an Iraqi citizen and a US war veteran. The project, It Is What It Is, was presented at Creative Time and the New Museum, New York and the car is now part of the Imperial War Museum’s Collection. In the same year, he staged Procession, in Manchester, involving participants, commissioned floats, choreographed music and performances creating an odd and celebratory spectacle.
During the summer of 2012, Sacrilege, Deller’s life-size inflatable version of Stonehenge (a co- commission between Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art and the Mayor of London) toured around the UK to great public acclaim.’22
Deller has exhibited widely around the world.
For more information on his work and projects click here.23
B Jeremy Deller and national identity
While viewing this exhibition, you may remember the 2012 London Olympics launch event directed by Danny Boyle. History and contemporary life in the United Kingdom were depicted, ranging from the activism of the Suffragettes to a theatrical dramatisation of the National Health Service. Hundreds of musicians and performers were engaged in exploring notions and constructions of Britain, past and present. Boyle presented the UK as a vibrant, diverse country, dynamic in its imaginative hosting of this major global sporting competition, seeking consensus whilst making reference to particular political and social events in recent British history. Differences between Boyle’s and Deller’s approaches to British identity could be seen as Boyle being more celebratory, while Deller asks us, the audience, to think more critically. Underpinning both these approaches are understandings of the relationship between culture, identity and the construction of nationhood.
Deller’s approaches to the complexity of identity can be seen in Folk Archive (2000).This work is not in the English Magic exhibition but is a key example of Deller and Kane’s approach to identity, collaboration and English popular culture. Deller is not pretending that there is agreement about diversity or equality in the UK. The archive of comics, flyers, beer mats also contains racist cartoons in a collection of popular artefacts describing British folk art. Folk Archive is deliberate in including reactionary elements and offensive materials; this is an alternative and non-utopian view of the UK.
25 C Jeremy Deller and politics: The Battle of Orgreave
Throughout his career, Deller has used wide-ranging approaches to explore what fairness and social justice can mean for us. Often, the artworks he produces take the form of an event, where the documentation and research remain after the temporal performance has ended. The Battle of Orgreave (2001) restaged and reconstructed a major British political demonstration in 1984, between miners facing unemployment, and police employed to prevent this demonstration. Eight thousand riot police and mounted officers clashed with five thousand miners outside Orgreave, a South Yorkshire village, within a wider political context of Margaret Thatcher’s commitment to end mining and break the unions.
The Battle of Orgreave, 2001
During the late 1990s, Deller worked with hundreds of people over several years to research and eventually re-enact this bloody confrontation of 1984. The restaging of this event in 2001 required the participation and the active support of former miners, police and battle enactment societies. Deller undertook extensive research, meeting former miners and making over 30 site visits. At no stage was he trying to achieve a consensus between the miners and police, who themselves occupied many different political positions. Instead, Deller was interested in this reconstruction as a public event which enabled a further exploration of power, politics and personal histories.
Following on from themes of political power and dissent explored in The Battle of Orgreave, Deller developed It Is What It Is (2009) as a mini procession. Here, Deller and a small team drove across the United States towing a burnt out car, damaged by a bomb explosion in Baghdad. His trip companions included a US Army propaganda officer, an Iraqi translator and an artist and journalist employed by the Coalition forces. This work has been described by one critic as being ‘distinctly apolitical’ as the ‘artist had been more interested in creating open conversations than a platform for readymade opinion’.24
26 7 Booklist
British Council http://www.britishcouncil-venice.org/images/British_Pavilion_2013_uk.pdf Deller, J. 1999, The Uses of Literacy, Open House/Book Works Deller, J. 2001, Life is to blame for everything; Collected work and projects 1992–99, Salon 3 (limited edition of 2,000) Deller, J. 2001, The English Civil War Part 2; Personal Accounts of the 1984–85 Miners’ Strike, Artangel Deller, J and Kane, 2005, Folk Archive: Contemporary Popular Art from the UK, Book Works Deller, J. 2010, Procession, Cornerhouse / Manchester International Festival Deller, J. 2013, English Magic, British Council Hall, Stuart, ‘Jeremy Deller’s Political Imagination’ from Jeremy Deller: Joy in People 2012 Hayward Publishing South Bank Centre (81–89)
27 8 Endnotes
1. http://venicebiennale.britishcouncil.org/timeline/2013/type/video/media/jeremy-deller-interview-venice-2013 2. http://venicebiennale.britishcouncil.org/timeline/2013/type/video/media/jeremy-deller-interview-venice-2013 3. Stuart Sam Hughes in conversation with author and Sharon Trotter, December 19, 2013, William Morris Gallery, while installing English Magic. 4. A ‘Utopia’ is an idealised world — a term originally conceived by Thomas More in in the sixteenth century. 5. Stuart Hall in his essay ‘Jeremy Deller’s Political Imagination’; Jeremy Deller: Joy in People (2012) Hayward Publishing Southbank Centre (88) 6. http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/jun/01/jeremy-deller-venice-biennale-interview 7. http://www.applebyglobal.com/publication-pdf-versions/articles/articles-2010/the-use-of-jersey-companies-in-cash- box-placings-by-mark-estella.pdf 8. http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/aug/28/venice-biennale-prisoners-exhibition-iraq 9. Deller’s work on Davis Bowie is not included as part of the William Morris Gallery exhibition although images are referenced in the catalogue. 10. http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/video/2013/may/29/venice-biennale-jeremy-deller-english-magic-video 11. http://venicebiennale.britishcouncil.org/timeline/2013/type/video/media/jeremy-deller-interview-venice-2013 12. http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/jun/04/roman-abramovich-upsets-venetians-view 13. http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/may/28/jeremy-deller-britain-venice-biennale 14. UnCut: http://www.ukuncut.org.uk/targets/2 15. http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/may/28/jeremy-deller-britain-venice-biennale 16. Oscar Wilde, ‘The Critic as Artist’, Complete Works of Oscar Wilde, 5th edition, Collins, Glasgow (2003), p.1108 (First published 1891) 17. http://www.britishcouncil.org 18. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jul/30/danny-boyle-olympics-ceremony-partial-history 19. Josef Beuys and Fluxus manifesto: http://www.artnotart.com/fluxus/jbeuys-manifesto.html 20. http://libcom.org/files/Situationists%20-%20an%20introduction.pdf 21. http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p01hs5t8/Storyville_20132014_Pussy_Riot_A_Punk_Prayer/ We recommend teachers observe BBC advice on strong language and content before sharing link with students under age of 14 22. Text taken from British Council Press release at the opening of the British Pavilion, Venice Biennale 2013 23. http://www.jeremydeller.org 24. Ralph Rugoff, 2012 ‘Joy in People’ p.18, Hayward Publishing
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