Jeremy Deller
18 Oct - 24 Nov 2012
JEREMY DELLER
18 October - 24 November 2012
My Dear Friend, history does nothing. It possesses no immense wealth, it wages no battles; it is Man, real living Man that does all that, that possesses and fights. History is not a person apart, using Man as means for its own particular aims; history is nothing but the activity of Man pursuing his aims’
For his third exhibition at Art : Concept, Jeremy Deller takes us for a dive in apnea through History with the aim of making us consider the place that we occupy in nowadays society. Self-taught and uncontaminated by art-school teachings, Deller in turn adopts Pop, funny and somtimes cynical styles. Through pieces such as A time Before Shopping, which is a wall-painting that represents a trilith of the Stonehenge, or through the pictures of young gymnasts doing flips in the megalithic temple which he has turned into a bouncy inflatable castle, the idea isn’t so much to commit Sacrilege (which is the title of this surprising piece) as to bring together two cultures separated by centuries and organize their playful confrontation.
The inflatable Stonehenge, as well as the Beyond The White Walls slide show that will be presented during this exhibition, in which Deller relates different outdoor projects he made during his ten first years of career, or even Memory Bucket a documentary on customs and patterns in Texas, which was rewarded with the 2004 Turner Prize; all have a humorous and critical dimension and serve as contact element between different communities in various surprising contexts.
However, the real strength of these pieces resides in their ability to pinpoint questions on sanctity and the prohibition to enter certain monuments or touch and manipulate certain emblems and social codes, especially those liked to political, economic and religious powers. By treading the sacred soil of Stonehenge in a frenzy of jumps, or acknowledging popular culture by mentioning music fans or British people gathered in Buckingham on the day of the death- announcement of Princess Diana, the idea is to foster the birth of the creative power of a crowd. To fight the fear and submission imposed by ruling powers by provoking a confrontation between history, culture and heritage. Jeremy Deller’s work is to be experienced and appreciated by everyone. He invites us to create a participative work in which we can all play a role. His works, trans-historical and presenting freedom of expression as social vector of sense and values, initiate a dialogue between cultures, people, past, present and what the future could be.
In a society that claims to provide access to culture to everybody but never ceases to indicate which are the models that we should follow, what is culturally and intellectually acceptable and what isn’t, Jeremy Deller has broken free by starting to play with social stereotypes, by taking an interest in sub-cultures, folklores, people, all that is human as a matter of fact. Human being in its poignant authenticity: from the marginal existence of a clown getting lost in an International trade fair to the unity of miners rising against tatcherism or to the existence of fans living a life by proxy. Deller collects objects and images and assimilates them for us. The result is an identifying panorama; group or single portraits that finally make us focus on us.
This non-conventional artist, who started exhibiting in 1993 at his parents’ house and who will represent Great Britain during the next Venice Biennale never ceasing to dig, search and make us dive into the fascinating and finally unknown universe that is our own.
Aurélia Bourquard
Traduction Frieda Schumann
(1) Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels, La Sainte Famille ou la Critique de la critique critique contre Bruno Bauer et consorts, (1845), chap VI, version numérique, Jean-Marie Tremblay, p.100.
18 October - 24 November 2012
My Dear Friend, history does nothing. It possesses no immense wealth, it wages no battles; it is Man, real living Man that does all that, that possesses and fights. History is not a person apart, using Man as means for its own particular aims; history is nothing but the activity of Man pursuing his aims’
For his third exhibition at Art : Concept, Jeremy Deller takes us for a dive in apnea through History with the aim of making us consider the place that we occupy in nowadays society. Self-taught and uncontaminated by art-school teachings, Deller in turn adopts Pop, funny and somtimes cynical styles. Through pieces such as A time Before Shopping, which is a wall-painting that represents a trilith of the Stonehenge, or through the pictures of young gymnasts doing flips in the megalithic temple which he has turned into a bouncy inflatable castle, the idea isn’t so much to commit Sacrilege (which is the title of this surprising piece) as to bring together two cultures separated by centuries and organize their playful confrontation.
The inflatable Stonehenge, as well as the Beyond The White Walls slide show that will be presented during this exhibition, in which Deller relates different outdoor projects he made during his ten first years of career, or even Memory Bucket a documentary on customs and patterns in Texas, which was rewarded with the 2004 Turner Prize; all have a humorous and critical dimension and serve as contact element between different communities in various surprising contexts.
However, the real strength of these pieces resides in their ability to pinpoint questions on sanctity and the prohibition to enter certain monuments or touch and manipulate certain emblems and social codes, especially those liked to political, economic and religious powers. By treading the sacred soil of Stonehenge in a frenzy of jumps, or acknowledging popular culture by mentioning music fans or British people gathered in Buckingham on the day of the death- announcement of Princess Diana, the idea is to foster the birth of the creative power of a crowd. To fight the fear and submission imposed by ruling powers by provoking a confrontation between history, culture and heritage. Jeremy Deller’s work is to be experienced and appreciated by everyone. He invites us to create a participative work in which we can all play a role. His works, trans-historical and presenting freedom of expression as social vector of sense and values, initiate a dialogue between cultures, people, past, present and what the future could be.
In a society that claims to provide access to culture to everybody but never ceases to indicate which are the models that we should follow, what is culturally and intellectually acceptable and what isn’t, Jeremy Deller has broken free by starting to play with social stereotypes, by taking an interest in sub-cultures, folklores, people, all that is human as a matter of fact. Human being in its poignant authenticity: from the marginal existence of a clown getting lost in an International trade fair to the unity of miners rising against tatcherism or to the existence of fans living a life by proxy. Deller collects objects and images and assimilates them for us. The result is an identifying panorama; group or single portraits that finally make us focus on us.
This non-conventional artist, who started exhibiting in 1993 at his parents’ house and who will represent Great Britain during the next Venice Biennale never ceasing to dig, search and make us dive into the fascinating and finally unknown universe that is our own.
Aurélia Bourquard
Traduction Frieda Schumann
(1) Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels, La Sainte Famille ou la Critique de la critique critique contre Bruno Bauer et consorts, (1845), chap VI, version numérique, Jean-Marie Tremblay, p.100.