A Dulwich College old boy, he is odds-on favourite to clinch the Turner prize on Monday. In shunning the trendy art scene and 'commodification', he boasts an unusually wide range of admirers, from miners to musicians
Bookies' favourite ... Deller. Photo: Tate
Visitors to Dulwich College's website will note that an old boy is hotly tipped to win the Turner prize on Monday. What the school fails to mention is that Jeremy Deller never actually studied art there. "I wasn't so much advised not to take the O level as not allowed to do it. I couldn't draw, paint or sculpt," he recalled this week, without chagrin.
By his own admission, the artist is "not a technically capable person". Yet, at 38, he is not just the youngest but also the favourite of the four Turner nominees to win the prestigious art prize. The bookies pegged him at 7/4 the minute they saw the list. For many admirers, the surprise is that he was not included earlier.
The apparent contradiction between his success and his lack of traditional skills should play into the hands of those who scorn contemporary art; as should the bizarre nature of his projects. At first glimpse, a list of his works might suggest the worst excesses of the cultural elite: a kind of sneering, ironic nod to the working classes. Apparently incompatible sources collide in one-off events or processes, often leaving him with little concrete to show for his work.
How about getting a brass band from Stockport to cover acid house tracks? Or basing an entire exhibition on the work of the Manic Street Preachers, with Lego figures of the rock band and a specially commissioned poem about them by the Eisteddfod bard? Why not stage a reconstruction of the Battle of Orgreave, near Rotherham, perhaps the most vicious and controversial confrontation of the 1984-5 miners' strike?
Deller certainly has his detractors. "No artistic vision ... disgustingly twee, infuriatingly precious, insufferably condescending," the Daily Telegraph's critic Richard Dorment observed of one exhibition. But the artist's sheer passion for his subjects has won him a surprising range of fans.
"His work is hilarious and touching," says the musician David Byrne, who allowed Deller to use the Talking Heads song Heaven in a short film because of his appreciation for the "brilliant" Orgreave event. The sculptor Cornelia Parker, a previous Turner nominee, admires the complexity of his work.
"Warhol said that pop art was about liking things, whereas for me folk art is about loving things," Deller once observed. He describes his career as an accident which resulted from his fascination with the world as a whole and with "low-level creativity", although he has doubtless drawn on art history studies at the Courtauld Institute and Sussex University. While his drawing might leave much to be desired, his academic credentials are impeccable. He held his first "proper" exhibition just 10 years ago, at his parents' house - they were on holiday and only found out after spotting pictures in a book recently. Even now, he is by choice on the fringes of the contemporary art crowd.
"He wanted to engage with things that weren't part of that whole London-centric scene, even though he's a London artist," says Bill Drummond, formerly of the band KLF - who were collaborators on the acid brass project. The passion behind Deller's wide-ranging interests is evident to anyone who meets him, says Andy Gillooly, assistant manager of the Williams Fairey works brass band at the time of the acid brass collaboration.
To picture him as a manipulating metropolitan Svengali is patronising. The band were themselves keen to establish distance from the "flat-cap image" and proposed other tracks. Similarly, former miners queued up to take part in the Orgreave reconstruction. Deller insists that participants are always in on the joke: aware of his work's absurdity as well as its seriousness. "I'm totally uninterested in poking fun at people. It's just too easy," he says.
While almost all his work is overtly political, it evokes instead of lecturing. Though his work is broadly left wing, it is hard to discern a party line and his views seem to be based primarily on honouring the dignity of others.
In Memory Bucket, the film about Texas for which he was nominated this year, he accords as much respect to the manager enthusing about Bush's visits to her coffee shop as he does to the anti-war protesters. The memorials in the Turner show pay tribute with equal sincerity to Brian Epstein, the migrants who arrived on the Empire Windrush, and a cyclist mown down by a dangerous driver. Above all, Deller embraces complexity and is fascinated by connections; a sprawling diagram across one wall of the Tate show relates acid house and brass bands via points including "melancholy", "808 State", "media hysteria", "civic pride", "Ibiza" and "advanced capitalism". "In one sense the connections [he draws] don't really stand up to rigorous investigation," says Bill Drummond.
"But you can remove all that and think 'This is a great thing, coming from his heart'. Even one of his carrier bags or T-shirts has something moving about it."
Matthew Slotover, the editor of the art magazine Frieze and a long-time admirer, says that Deller has the ability to engage almost anyone.
"It's easy to say 'I will bring these things together' and there's an obscure connection there which no one else feels, but when Jeremy does it, it works in a really immediate way to participants and the general public as well as the art crowd," he says.
Tellingly, Deller remains friends with many former collaborators.
"He's an incredibly generous person to work with. He was interested and thought about what I said to him, but really let me go with the flow," says Ed Hall, who made the banner commemorating the Windrush for Deller.
"He takes very commonplace themes and people - including me - and puts them into these grand settings. The people I have mixed with for most of my working life are rail workers, trade union activists; ordinary people on a huge stage - and that is what he taps into.
"He has a lovely manner. He comes across as someone who's really alive and getting on with life. He's a good listener and if he promises something he'll do it. He turns up on time. I can't really think of any weak spots. He's a very nice-looking guy ... I don't even think he smokes," says Mr Hall.
If anything, Deller's Achilles' heel may be his passion. His works are mostly events and processes, which can't be bought and sold. For that reason, the cash attached to the Turner prize is perhaps more important to him than to most contenders, although the £40,000 fund may be split for the first time this year.
"Most people end up producing things for wealthy people or institutions to buy. He's resisted that commodification," says Drummond.
Worse still, Deller hates deadlines and loves long-term projects. The Battle of Orgreave, which involved thousands of participants, took three years to recreate.
Will that commitment be enough to win him the Turner prize? Even admirers warn that he is not a shoo-in, arguing that his work by its nature does not lend itself to an exhibition - although the judges actually base their decision on the artists' recent bodies of work, rather than the show at Tate Britain.
Michael Morris of Artangel, which commissioned the Orgreave reconstruction admits that it is hard to understand quite what Deller does from just one room.
"Anyone would be swept away by one of his happenings," wrote Philip Hensher in the Mail on Sunday. But he argued that "his work is outside galleries, and anything you can show is the detritus after something tremendous".
While the money would undoubtedly be welcome to Deller, the prize itself may be almost irrelevant: he has already achieved the rare feat of making truly popular contemporary art. Not many Turner-nominated artists have dockers, rock stars, miners and mayors crossing fingers for their victory.
Life in short:
Born in London in 1966, and continues to live and work in the capital
In 1988 he completed a BA in art history at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, specialising in Baroque art and architecture. In 1992 he completed an MA degree in art history at Sussex University
One of his best-known works was the The Battle of Orgreave, which he described as 'a piece of living history', after bringing together veteran miners to restage a clash with the police in 1984-5
His latest series of photographs explores the political heritage of Britain, by commissioning a variety of memorials to individuals and events in recent history
Deller has been shortlisted for the Turner Prize for his installation, Memory Bucket, at ArtPace, San Antonio
Tania Branigan
The Guardian, Friday 3 December 2004 10.33 GMT
Visitors to Dulwich College's website will note that an old boy is hotly tipped to win the Turner prize on Monday. What the school fails to mention is that Jeremy Deller never actually studied art there. "I wasn't so much advised not to take the O level as not allowed to do it. I couldn't draw, paint or sculpt," he recalled this week, without chagrin.
By his own admission, the artist is "not a technically capable person". Yet, at 38, he is not just the youngest but also the favourite of the four Turner nominees to win the prestigious art prize. The bookies pegged him at 7/4 the minute they saw the list. For many admirers, the surprise is that he was not included earlier.
The apparent contradiction between his success and his lack of traditional skills should play into the hands of those who scorn contemporary art; as should the bizarre nature of his projects. At first glimpse, a list of his works might suggest the worst excesses of the cultural elite: a kind of sneering, ironic nod to the working classes. Apparently incompatible sources collide in one-off events or processes, often leaving him with little concrete to show for his work.
How about getting a brass band from Stockport to cover acid house tracks? Or basing an entire exhibition on the work of the Manic Street Preachers, with Lego figures of the rock band and a specially commissioned poem about them by the Eisteddfod bard? Why not stage a reconstruction of the Battle of Orgreave, near Rotherham, perhaps the most vicious and controversial confrontation of the 1984-5 miners' strike?
Deller certainly has his detractors. "No artistic vision ... disgustingly twee, infuriatingly precious, insufferably condescending," the Daily Telegraph's critic Richard Dorment observed of one exhibition. But the artist's sheer passion for his subjects has won him a surprising range of fans.
"His work is hilarious and touching," says the musician David Byrne, who allowed Deller to use the Talking Heads song Heaven in a short film because of his appreciation for the "brilliant" Orgreave event. The sculptor Cornelia Parker, a previous Turner nominee, admires the complexity of his work.
"Warhol said that pop art was about liking things, whereas for me folk art is about loving things," Deller once observed. He describes his career as an accident which resulted from his fascination with the world as a whole and with "low-level creativity", although he has doubtless drawn on art history studies at the Courtauld Institute and Sussex University. While his drawing might leave much to be desired, his academic credentials are impeccable. He held his first "proper" exhibition just 10 years ago, at his parents' house - they were on holiday and only found out after spotting pictures in a book recently. Even now, he is by choice on the fringes of the contemporary art crowd.
"He wanted to engage with things that weren't part of that whole London-centric scene, even though he's a London artist," says Bill Drummond, formerly of the band KLF - who were collaborators on the acid brass project. The passion behind Deller's wide-ranging interests is evident to anyone who meets him, says Andy Gillooly, assistant manager of the Williams Fairey works brass band at the time of the acid brass collaboration.
To picture him as a manipulating metropolitan Svengali is patronising. The band were themselves keen to establish distance from the "flat-cap image" and proposed other tracks. Similarly, former miners queued up to take part in the Orgreave reconstruction. Deller insists that participants are always in on the joke: aware of his work's absurdity as well as its seriousness. "I'm totally uninterested in poking fun at people. It's just too easy," he says.
While almost all his work is overtly political, it evokes instead of lecturing. Though his work is broadly left wing, it is hard to discern a party line and his views seem to be based primarily on honouring the dignity of others.
In Memory Bucket, the film about Texas for which he was nominated this year, he accords as much respect to the manager enthusing about Bush's visits to her coffee shop as he does to the anti-war protesters. The memorials in the Turner show pay tribute with equal sincerity to Brian Epstein, the migrants who arrived on the Empire Windrush, and a cyclist mown down by a dangerous driver. Above all, Deller embraces complexity and is fascinated by connections; a sprawling diagram across one wall of the Tate show relates acid house and brass bands via points including "melancholy", "808 State", "media hysteria", "civic pride", "Ibiza" and "advanced capitalism". "In one sense the connections [he draws] don't really stand up to rigorous investigation," says Bill Drummond.
"But you can remove all that and think 'This is a great thing, coming from his heart'. Even one of his carrier bags or T-shirts has something moving about it."
Matthew Slotover, the editor of the art magazine Frieze and a long-time admirer, says that Deller has the ability to engage almost anyone.
"It's easy to say 'I will bring these things together' and there's an obscure connection there which no one else feels, but when Jeremy does it, it works in a really immediate way to participants and the general public as well as the art crowd," he says.
Tellingly, Deller remains friends with many former collaborators.
"He's an incredibly generous person to work with. He was interested and thought about what I said to him, but really let me go with the flow," says Ed Hall, who made the banner commemorating the Windrush for Deller.
"He takes very commonplace themes and people - including me - and puts them into these grand settings. The people I have mixed with for most of my working life are rail workers, trade union activists; ordinary people on a huge stage - and that is what he taps into.
"He has a lovely manner. He comes across as someone who's really alive and getting on with life. He's a good listener and if he promises something he'll do it. He turns up on time. I can't really think of any weak spots. He's a very nice-looking guy ... I don't even think he smokes," says Mr Hall.
If anything, Deller's Achilles' heel may be his passion. His works are mostly events and processes, which can't be bought and sold. For that reason, the cash attached to the Turner prize is perhaps more important to him than to most contenders, although the £40,000 fund may be split for the first time this year.
"Most people end up producing things for wealthy people or institutions to buy. He's resisted that commodification," says Drummond.
Worse still, Deller hates deadlines and loves long-term projects. The Battle of Orgreave, which involved thousands of participants, took three years to recreate.
Will that commitment be enough to win him the Turner prize? Even admirers warn that he is not a shoo-in, arguing that his work by its nature does not lend itself to an exhibition - although the judges actually base their decision on the artists' recent bodies of work, rather than the show at Tate Britain.
Michael Morris of Artangel, which commissioned the Orgreave reconstruction admits that it is hard to understand quite what Deller does from just one room.
"Anyone would be swept away by one of his happenings," wrote Philip Hensher in the Mail on Sunday. But he argued that "his work is outside galleries, and anything you can show is the detritus after something tremendous".
While the money would undoubtedly be welcome to Deller, the prize itself may be almost irrelevant: he has already achieved the rare feat of making truly popular contemporary art. Not many Turner-nominated artists have dockers, rock stars, miners and mayors crossing fingers for their victory.
Life in short:
Born in London in 1966, and continues to live and work in the capital
In 1988 he completed a BA in art history at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, specialising in Baroque art and architecture. In 1992 he completed an MA degree in art history at Sussex University
One of his best-known works was the The Battle of Orgreave, which he described as 'a piece of living history', after bringing together veteran miners to restage a clash with the police in 1984-5
His latest series of photographs explores the political heritage of Britain, by commissioning a variety of memorials to individuals and events in recent history
Deller has been shortlisted for the Turner Prize for his installation, Memory Bucket, at ArtPace, San Antonio
Tania Branigan
The Guardian, Friday 3 December 2004 10.33 GMT
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