55. Biennale – Jeremy Deller

Jeremy Deller rappresenta la Gran Bretagna alla Biennale di Venezia col progetto

Comunicato stampa

British Council’s commission for the British Pavilion at the
55th Venice Biennale - Jeremy Deller
Jeremy Deller will present a much-anticipated solo exhibition in the British Pavilion at the
55th International Art Exhibition in Venice from 1st June to 24th November 2013.
Jeremy Deller’s way of working as artist, orchestrator, filmmaker, curator and cultural
archivist is both highly influential and often collaborative. People often take centre stage in
Deller’s practice and, over the last two decades, the Turner Prize-winning artist has
collaborated with groups as diverse as former miners, bat behavioural experts, Depeche
Mode fans and numerous musicians. Deller has an infectious interest in the creativity of
others, overturning cultural hierarchies and staging opportunities for interaction with
characteristic wit and clarity.
The British Council has commissioned artists to represent Britain at the Venice Biennale,
celebrating the best of British art since 1938 and Deller is the 19th artist to be selected for a
solo presentation. The British Council’s commission follows on from two key projects last
year: Deller’s mid-career retrospective, Joy In People, which opened at the Hayward and is
currently touring the US, and Sacrilege (2012), his life-size inflatable version of Stonehenge
which toured around the UK during the summer.
"Wry, and very light on his feet, Deller has a great ability to draw together all sorts of people
and communities and orchestrate them into unexpected patterns. He's a sort of pied piper of
popular culture." Andrea Rose, Commissioner, British Pavilion.
Biography and selected exhibitions
Jeremy Deller (b. 1966, London; lives London) studied Art History at the Courtauld Institute
and at Sussex University. After meeting Andy Warhol in 1986 he spent two weeks at the
Factory in New York. He began making artworks in the early 1990s, often showing them
outside of conventional galleries. In 1993, while his parents were on holiday, he secretly
used the family home for an exhibition titled Open Bedroom.
Four years later he produced the musical performance Acid Brass with the Williams-Fairey
Band, and began making art in collaboration with other people. Deller staged The Battle of
Orgreave in 2001, commissioned by Artangel and Channel 4, directed by Mike Figgis, a reenactment
which brought together around 1000 veteran miners and members of historical
societies to restage the 1984 clash between miners and police at Orgreave, Yorkshire. In
2004, Deller won the Turner Prize for Memory Bucket (2003), a documentary about Texas.
2/3
He has since made a number of documentaries on subjects ranging from exotic wrestler
Adrian Street to die-hard international fans of the band Depeche Mode.
In 2009 Deller undertook a road trip across the US from New York to Los Angeles along with
an Iraqi citizen and a US war veteran, towing a car destroyed in a bomb attack in Baghdad.
The project, It Is What It Is, was presented at the New Museum, New York; 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.
Deller has exhibited widely internationally and selected monographic exhibitions include:
Unconvention (1999, Centre for Visual Arts, Cardiff), After the Goldrush (2002, Wattis
Institute, San Francisco), Folk Archive with Alan Kane (2004, Centre Pompidou, Paris and
Barbican Art Gallery, London), Jeremy Deller (2005, Kunstverein, Munich), From One
Revolution to Another (2008, Palais de Tokyo, Paris), It Is What It Is: Conversations About
Iraq (2009, New Museum, NY, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, and Museum of
Contemporary Art, Chicago), Processions (2009, Cornerhouse, Manchester) and Joy in
People at the Hayward Gallery which is currently touring in the US. www.jeremydeller.org
Jeremy Deller is represented in the UK by The Modern Institute, Glasgow, Art: Concept,
Paris and internationally by Gavin Brown’s enterprise, New York.
For press information, interview opportunities and images please contact:
Chloe Kinsman or Kara Reaney at Pelham Communications on +44 208 9693959
[email protected] or [email protected]
For information about the British Council please contact:
Alex Bratt at [email protected]
The British Council at The Venice Biennale:
The British Council has commissioned artists to represent Britain at the Venice Biennale to
celebrate the best of emerging and established British art since 1938. Artists representing
Britain have included Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, Ben
Nicholson, Anthony Caro, Bridget Riley, Richard Long, Frank Auerbach, Howard
Hodgkin, Barry Flanagan, Anish Kapoor, Richard Hamilton, Rachel Whiteread, Leon
Kossoff, Gary Hume, Mark Wallinger, Gilbert & George, Tracey Emin, Steve McQueen and
most recently Mike Nelson in 2011.
The British Council appoints a committee of leading arts professionals from across the
UK to select the British representation for the Venice Biennale every two years. For further
information please visit www.britishcouncil.org/venicebiennale
3/3
Members of the Venice Biennale Selection Committee for 2013:
- Ben Borthwick, Artistic Director, Artes Mundi, Cardiff
- Maoliosa Boyle, Director, Void Gallery, Derry
- Chris Dercon, Director, Tate Modern, London
- Simon Groom, Director, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh
- Waldemar Januszczak, Art Critic, The Sunday Times
- Jenni Lomax, Director, Camden Arts Centre, London
- Victoria Pomery, Director, Turner Contemporary, Margate
- Simon Wallis, Director, The Hepworth Wakefield
- Chair: Andrea Rose, Director of Visual Arts, British Council
EXHIBITION DETAILS
JEREMY DELLER
Address: British Pavilion, Giardini di Castello 30122
Exhibition dates: 1st June to 24th November 2013
Opening times: 10am-6pm Tuesday to Sunday. Closed on Mondays.
Vaporetto: Giardini
Catalogue: A catalogue will accompany the exhibition
The British Pavilion is managed by the British Council Visual Arts Department
Commissioner: Andrea Rose
Exhibition Curator: Emma Gifford-Mead
For latest news on the commission: www.britishcouncil.org/visualarts
twitter.com/BCVisualArts
facebook.com/Arts.BritishCouncil
About the British Council:
The British Council creates international opportunities for the people of the UK and other
countries and builds trust between them worldwide. We are a Royal Charter charity,
established as the UK’s international organisation for educational opportunities and cultural
relations. Our 7000 staff in over 100 countries work with thousands of professionals and
policy makers and millions of young people every year through English, arts, education and
society programmes. We earn over 75% of our annual turnover of nearly £700 million from
services which customers pay for, education and development contracts we bid for and
from partnerships. A UK Government grant provides the remaining 25%. We match every
£1 of core public funding with over £3 earned in pursuit of our charitable purpose.
For more information, please visit: www.britishcouncil.org or call our Press Office on +44
(0)20 7389 4268. You can also keep in touch with the British Council through
http://twitter.com/britishcouncil and http://blog.britishcouncil.org/.