Art Is Magic: a children's book for adults by

Product Information

Persuading Britain’s weekend Vikings to participate was less of a problem, having enlisted expert re-enactment tactican Howard Giles onto our team. The day itself unfolded with military precision but came across (particularly in the police cavalry charge down Highfield Lane) as though it was happening for real. Which in many ways it was – a piece of social history re-lived, not re-enacted.

Over a thousand people were involved in the project, either through taking part, filming or helping with the research. I would personally like to thank everyone who has shown faith in the project or was at least willing to give it a go.He spent a day with pupils in a North London school. By chance none of these young people had parents who had been born in the UK, so they had no idea about life here in the 80s. He showed them archive film of both the miners’ strike and various raves. The film became Everybody in the Place: An Incomplete History of Britain 1984-1992 (2018.) The pupils were amazed. Deller took shots of their reactions. The Battle of Orgreave was incomprehensible to them – one asked if the men were striking because of climate change. the comradeship of brass bands and their strong sense of pride have meant that they have long been used to symbolise the solidarity of trade unions and the working class. While house music’s original political stance was more one of passive resistance, in England the acid house scene took on a more oppositional, counter-cultural edge. Alongside the shared euphoria of Ecstasy, the music's independence from major record companies and the illegality of many of the raves fostered a sense of community amongst a generation of disaffected, Thatcher-alienated youth. Deller’s greatest work has taken place beyond gallery walls. Think of The Battle of Orgreave (2001), a 1000-person re-enactment of a clash between police and striking miners in 1984, for which Deller recruited a cast of ex-miners and battle re-enactors. Or We’re Here Because We’re Here (2016), his First World War memorial work, in which 1,400 young men in authentic military uniforms appeared, unheralded and unexplained, in public spaces around the UK on 1 July, the centenary of the Battle of the Somme.

The exhibition will tour the UK in 2014 to the William Morris Gallery, London Borough of Waltham Forest; Bristol Museum and Art Gallery; and Turner Contemporary, Margate. When things have gone wrong, it’s tended to be in the art gallery rather than the public domain. In 2000, he and Alan Kane started building up a collection of British folk art – everything from trade-union banners to parade costumes, to a mechanical elephant, to a model of the Coronation Street set. It was exhibited at the Barbican in London, and the critical reaction was horrendous. “I’ve never had such vitriol. It’s horrible what people said about the work and the people who made it. And me, of course. One critic said: ‘I can’t believe I’ve been asked to review this show. It’s literally rubbish.’” You mean make art?” Deller responds with, notably, nervous laughter. ​ “It’s been aprocess of elimination, in that having studied art history, Isoon realised that it was aworld Iwasn’t equipped to be in.” Jeremy Dellerwas selected as part of the 1999 Opencall for proposals from Artangel which resulted in The Battle of Orgreave in 2001.He went on to contribute to Hearts of Darkness, part of A Room for London in 2012, and is now thecurrent Chair of the Board of Trustees. When he talks about his work, Deller often draws parallels between recent events and moments from history or mythology. He describes the rural acid-house raves of the late 80s, which he explored in his film Everybody in the Place, as “Dionysian and Bacchic”. When I ask him to elaborate, he says: “Though no one was thinking of it in these terms at the time, there was definitely a mythical, epic quality to the rave scene: the quest to find the rave, to move towards the light in the countryside, and to find a transcendent release through the experience. There was a folk element, too, insofar as raves were communal, grassroots events that involved rituals and strange modes of dress.”I meant more in terms of the art world, where he has always seemed out of step with the prevailing trends and apart from the ongoing carnival of commodification that began in earnest with the ascendancy of the YBA generation, of whom he is a contemporary. “Well, my work is less defined by what’s going on in the art world,” he says. “And I do feel like I have created a world to be within in a sense. But, no, I’m not really an outsider. It would be too romantic to say that.” Jeremy Deller’s new book, which he describes as “a sort of retrospective”, is called Art Is Magic. It reflects his belief in the alchemical power of art to transform the everyday – “if only for a moment, making the mundane profound”. He did, however, consider several other alternative titles for the book, including “That’s Not Art”, “Call That Art?” and “You Can’t Do That” , all of which are things people have said to him about his work.