British Council – British Pavilion in Venice

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 Britainat 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 SussexUniversity. 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 re-enactment 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.

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, inManchester, 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,Parisand internationally by Gavin Brown’s enterprise,New York.

For press information, interview opportunities and images please contact:
Chloe Kinsman or Toby Kidd at Pelham Communications on  +44 208 9693959
Chloe@pelhamcommunications.com  or Toby@pelhamcommunications.com

For information about the British Council please contact:

Alex Bratt at Alex.Bratt@britishcouncil.org

The British Council at The Venice Biennale:

The British Council has commissioned artists to representBritainat 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, BridgetRiley, RichardLong,  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

Members of the Venice Biennale Selection Committee for 2013:

- Ben Borthwick, Artistic Director, Artes Mundi 5, 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 September 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

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