British artist Jeremy Deller talks about being a provocateur and the shock value of art
Jeremy Deller: The infinitely Variable Ideal of the Popular is currently on display at PROA. The show gives an overview of the well-known British artist who questions, probes and playfully comments on today’s society and pop culture. The Herald met the artist on the terrace of the PROA, looking out on his public intervention: — a painting on a distant wall which reads ‘We need more poetry.’ Deller orders a beer, as the sun is hot and the breeze of air conditioning coming from inside barely reaches the table where the show’s curator, Cuauhtemoc Medina, also joins us. In fact, the curator’s presence prompts the first question. During the tour of the exhibition, it was the curator who spoke the most. The artist rarely contributed. Why?
Jeremy Deller: I trust Cuauhtemoc completely. Absolutely, would I say different things. But this was best.
BA Herald: When we came to Acid Brass Live at Lovebox (a project where Deller combines acid house with brass-band music), you spoke out and mentioned its importance.
JD: It was a defining moment in my career. I realized then that I didn’t have to make things, but make things happen … The video shows the outcome and the mind map next to it explains why I was really doing it: to show that I did not do it as a joke, or for absurd reasons. I made it because these two music movements are deeply connected through history and politics and social change. A lot of my work has the potential to be a disaster. Like the miner strike piece could have been a disaster. It’s almost a comedy, like a Monty Python.
The miner strike piece or the Battle of Orgreave is Deller’s signature work, which put him in the spotlight and helped him win the coveted Turner Prize. It’s a re-enactment film of the clash between striking miners and the UK police in Orgreave in 1984.
The film is far from a disaster.
Partly because it’s on the edge of being a disaster, because it’s so stupid. And artists are allowed to do irresponsible, stupid things. Which is good. Someone has to do that. I prefer an artist to do a stupid thing than a politician. Since usually that ends up in more disasters.
Have you done projects that were too much of a disaster to show?
I try to forget those. I can’t remember… (laughs)
In the show, only your best works are on display. Did you take part in the selection process?
The curator was 90 percent responsible. (Turning to Cuauhtemoc Medina:) I mean, you knew what you wanted. Then we discussed it.
Cuauhtemoc Medina: He brought in the new piece.
BAH: The film that you recently made for the Lyon Biennale?
CM: Dancing girls and French pretentiousness.
JD: A slightly pervy film. (laughs)
Rhythmaspoetry (2015) is a filmed choreography of an elderly white man at his home, surrounded by sensual dancing non-white ladies, whom he appears not to see, while he raps about them and the culture they stand for.
BAH: It has a lot to do with exoticism, doesn’t it?
JD: It has to do with this man, who was a local politician, the head of the tourist industry in Lyon. He has a very specific view of Lyon. How it should change and be a different kind of place. It’s so conservative now. Lyon was marked by World War II, then freemasonry is huge there, integration failed, its outskirts are some of the biggest in the country, with all the poor people living there and the rich in the city centre. He is unhappy about that. With the film (all lyrics are the former politician’s own words) he was actually saying what he believes in. So, the film is serious, but presented in a strange way, because of these women dancing like spirits around him. I suppose these women are exotic, but they are French. They were born in France. They are not immigrants. That is the reality of France. It’s a multicultural society. Like Britain.
CM: I don’t think they’re exotic. It’s about the other versus the self.
JD: True, it was an unusual thing for this 75-year-old man to have these three women dancing around him.
BAH: Does this work have to do with your fascination with marginalized people?
JD: These people literally live in the margins. The centre of Lyon is beautiful. Like Paris. But the outskirts are totally different. It’s this problem that the cities of France, and Britain as well, have: distinct worlds. So that is what he is talking about (in the video). These women are around him while he is gardening. They are on his mind. I know it’s a kind of strange film. When I made it I was like ‘Fuck, what have I made? The film is a bit weird.’
BAH: Indeed...
JD: It can go in different directions. The choreographer, Cecilia (Bengolea, an Argentine, with whom Deller also collaborates on a work for the Sao Paulo Biennial) was extreme. She wanted it to be odd and slightly politically incorrect, which I like.
You like its political incorrectness?
JD: I like that it potentially is politically incorrect. Or that people go ‘Oh, what is happening here? I am not quite sure about this…’ Like when people said with the miners’ strike that it was a sacrilege to be taking it on. We, as artists, should push what people think is acceptable. So that’s what we are doing with that film. Making things a bit messy. Being messy with contemporary culture. Doing things that are slightly awkward and potentially leave a bad taste.
Why would you want to leave a bad taste?
Because I think it’s good to do that, sometimes.
To shock people?
No, to make people feel uncomfortable. I quite like that.
Why?
I don’t know. It’s in my nature. I don’t like confrontation very much, but I like making it.
Isn’t that cruel, to impose on others what you do not like yourself?
Well, I am usually there when it happens. Even though I find it unbearable myself. This thing I did in America in 2009. That was really confrontational. It’s not in this show. I managed to take a bombed car from Baghdad and tour it around all the right-wing states: Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Arizona. Towed on the back of a lorry. That was dangerously politically incorrect. A stupid thing to do. But I was present at that.
Why was it dangerous?
Well, think about it. We are taking a blown-up car, bombed by terrorists … and showing it in public places. In areas where fathers, brothers, or sons might have been or still were in Iraq. They could have a different political view, not want to see it or be offended. It was a provocation and we were lucky. We weren’t attacked. Having taken it around America was perhaps stupid, but there were a lot of reasons why I did it. Only an artist could have done that.
It being art makes it safe?
Art makes it possible. No one was really interested in the art element. When you bring it to the streets of New Orleans, no one gives a shit about art. They care about the car. Art is a space where you can experiment. With objects. And with history. With a social history that is still unformed, that you can mould.
Some people who will enter this show might wonder, ‘is this art?’
Well, I hope so ... I mean, of course it’s art.
It could also be seen as a series of investigations of popular culture.
I don’t think people care. When visitors come, they just want it to be good. I don’t care if people see it as art, as long as they like it really.
As long as they like it, or are being made feel uncomfortable?
Depends on what they are looking at. Some things are there to cause discomfort, some to be enjoyed. I make very different art. Not just to make people feel uncomfortable. That would be very stressful. I’m not that kind of person. I think people are very relaxed when it comes to art. At least they are in Britain. Contemporary art is like the dominant art form, after TV. It’s part of the national conversation. Which has a lot to do with the funding of art. It’s important the state is involved. Because if it doesn’t, it becomes like America: privatized, in the hands of the elite, a pursuit for the rich, tailored for them. When I show in America, I always have to meet the rich people on the first night. And then the next day, go to their house, and meet them again.
And then they buy your work?
No, the opposite. Then they ask for a work for the auction to fundraise for the museum. They love what you do, but they don’t buy it, because it’s too complicated. They can’t hang it up, you know. Institutions buy things.
One of the works in the show is about the future of museums — a series of posters publicizing shows that could one day happen.
Yes, and some of them are actually happening now! For instance, in 1995 I did a poster advertising a show on David Bowie, which is an actual show now touring the world (presently in Groningen, The Netherlands). It’s a prophecy really…
The prophet moves on from beer to Gancia, reminiscing about British music of the 70s, when rough social changes were taking place in the country — which he touches on in English Magic, a critically ironic remix of his 2013 Venice Biennale show.
Where and when
Until March at PROA (Av. Pedro de Mendoza 1929, La Boca). Open from Tuesday to Sunday, from 11am to 7pm. Check the website for the screening of Deller’s film Our Hobby is Depeche Mode: www.proa.org