Spotted and interviewed by Ingrid Beazley whilst taking in Guido Reni’s St Sebastians (at Dulwich Picture Gallery until 11 May 2008)
Jeremy Deller was winner of the Turner Prize in 2004 for his installation Memory Bucket (2003) a documentary about Crawford, Texas the hometown of George W Bush and the siege in nearby Waco.
His works are mostly events and processes, and long-term projects. The Battle of Orgreave, which involved thousands of participants, took three years to recreate.
These can’t be bought and sold. Unlike many artists, he does not produce things for wealthy people or institutions to buy and shuns the trendy art scene and commodification.
He was a student Dulwich College but 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, without chagrin.
By his own admission, he is “not a technically capable person”.
Jeremy Deller (along with Tracy Emin, Anthony Gormley and Anish Kapoor) has been shortlisted for the next work to go on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square
It is a bombed car – The Spoils of War (Memorial for an unknown civilian)
‘The presentation of the spoils of war to a curious public dates back at least to the Roman Empire. My idea for the fourth plinth performs a similar role’, says Jeremy Deller, ‘It is not an artwork, but the remains of a vehicle that has been destroyed in an attack on civilians in Iraq’.
He gave a talk at Dulwich Picture Gallery in 2005 and his parents live locally.
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