Jeremy Deller

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0:12Welcome to This Cultural Life, the series in which leading artistic people reveal the formative influences and experiences that inspired their own creativity. I'm John Wilson, and my guest in this episode is the artist Jeremy Della, winner of the Turner Prize in 2004, and Britain's official representative at the 2013 Venice Biennale. Della is an unconventional artist whose work is as likely to be seen in streets or fields as in museums and galleries. In his work The Battle of Orgreave, he restaged a modern civil conflict, a clash between striking miners and police officers. He persuaded a traditional brass band to play acid house tunes.

0:51Perhaps most memorably, on the centenary of the first day of the Battle of the Somme, He conjured ghostly platoons of young soldiers all around the UK in his work We're Here Because We're Here.

1:05Jeremy Deller, welcome to This Cultural Life. Thank you. You were brought up in Dulwich in South London. What are your earliest cultural memories of home? Well, church, actually. There's culture in church. There's a human culture, there's people, and then there's music and there's visuals and smells and so on. So your parents clearly churchgoers. Were they artistic? Not massively, no. But my father was interested in art and taking me to museums and art galleries. From an early age, I wasn't really kicking ball around or that sort of thing. I was going to the Imperial War Museum, the Hornhams Museum, places like that, Natural History Museum.

1:41So it's something I've always loved and it's always stayed with me. You went to Dulwich College, a prestigious public school, one with a good art department, I presume? Well, not for me, but it might have been for other people, but it was a very traditional school. and so the art department likewise was a reflection of the ethos of the school and so I didn't really get on with it. It's quite amazing how a teacher can take against you or you can take against a teacher and so we didn't see eye to eye. Even as an 11-year-old, you realise it's not going to work. A particular teacher? Yes, just because his view of art was very specific and of drawing, it was all about precision and I couldn't do that and so I was out basically.

2:21It was the kind of school where if you weren't good at something, you weren't allowed to do it because it reflected badly on the school as they saw so I did pottery which was fine it's a lot more fun but I never returned to art after that of drawing or painting that was it that was that finished at the age of 11 but I loved paintings and I loved being around art I did art history as a an extra a level and weirdly the art teacher who I just talked about tried to prevent me doing it because he thought I wasn't clever enough to do art history and I had to sort of beg him. I remember begging him to let me do it and in the end he did let me do art history.

2:56It was just a joy because at school the other subjects were a bit of a trudge basically and so to do art history, just looking at beautiful things and writing about art. And I did my A-level art history project on Francis Bacon because by the time about 16, that's when you're really getting into art like that, 15, 16, it's like adult art and so that was very exciting to go and look at his work and read about it and so on.

3:25On This Cultural Life, I ask my guests to choose those influences and experiences that have inspired their own creativity. And the first thing that you've chosen is film club at school and in particular seeing Ken Russell's film version of Tommy, the rock opera by The Who.

3:52Why have you chosen this? Well, I don't think I've ever recovered from watching Tommy, frankly. I'm still blown away by it.

4:05Because the school was a very academic, sports-focused school and there wasn't much fun to be had, to be honest. And one of the teachers there was a clearly very subversive character and he just had a film club and he just showed the most outrageous films like 12 and 13 year old boys and 14 year old boys. The first film I saw actually on a big screen was Performance. You must know that film. Nicholas Rowe. Yes, loads of sex, loads of violence, sometimes combined. Yeah, it's absolute, it's just like a mind-blowing film even as an adult to watch. So you can imagine as a 13 year old watching that film sitting in the front row and having no idea what it was going to be like.

4:43So he was clearly trying to bend the minds of these young boys basically and do that in a good way. And one of the films he showed was Tommy. And I think it was just all the things I'd been thinking about in terms of music and religion and politics and history were encompassed in it in a way that I couldn't really explain. Visually, it was just stunning. There's a lot of religion in it, which I found very interesting, and history, the Second World War, isn't it? And so it just had everything, really. And I remember afterwards, like the next few days, I was sort of floating around having watched it because I just couldn't believe what I'd seen.

5:15I couldn't believe someone had made that from their imagination.

5:30It is a visual feast and it's completely over the top and ridiculous in many ways. What particular scenes? There's a scene with Eric Clapton singing Eyesight to the Blind in a church. Every time she starts to love her, she brings eyesight to the blind. Oh yeah. With a lot of disabled people, but like real disabled people, not people acting disabled. And there's women in Marilyn masks giving them pills. And then there's this huge statue of Marilyn that's being carried along. and then it falls over and breaks and there's like a sort of chaos at the end and it's just like what is this how is anyone allowed to do this i mean i was absolutely overjoyed they were but i just couldn't believe what i was seeing

6:29a few years later one of your first artworks that you made involved keith moon the drummer of the who so were you a fan of the band itself i liked the band but then i became a huge fan of them almost the first and last paintings i ever made was um a series of paintings of the life of keith moon so it's almost like stations of the cross so why moon in particular he's the he's the sort of powerhouse of the band yes and also as a young person you think god it must be amazing being him he must he just looked at he had a laugh all the time and of course as you grow up you realize it was actually such a tragic character you know his descent into alcoholism and drug addiction and all those problems he had and when you see him just before he died he's 33 I think and he looks about 60 or something you know he's just used up his whole body and his mind and his life so quickly but I saw him as a sort of maybe a sort of martyr for something for for rock music

7:36Did you see him as a sort of a walking piece of performance art? Because the way he was dressed, the way he was... He was always on show. Yes, he was always performing. It's funny you should say that, because I did... After I did those paintings, around the same time, I was making posters for exhibitions that I could imagine seeing or I'd like to see, and one was a Keith Moon retrospective at the Tate Britain. And it's a picture of him surrounded by bottles and chaos and a child standing over him, his daughter, actually. So I was thinking about how these characters and how these musical movements fit into art history.

8:08So that's sort of my art historical training coming back. I was definitely interested in popular culture and its place within museum culture and pop music, and will it end up in museums? And just getting back to Tommy itself as a film, you say you were blown away by the spectacle. Did it make you want to create in any way? Did it inspire you? I mean, it did inspire me to think that there was actually a world of imagination that you could put on film or you could make for yourself. you could create this world. At that age, I wasn't thinking I'm going to be an artist. I never really thought that until a lot, lot later.

8:39I just knew that was the kind of world I was interested in and not the other world of sports and homework and stuff like that.

8:48Your next choice for this programme is the painter Francis Bacon, famous for his anguished, screaming figures. Sometimes they're naked, sometimes they're caged. Yeah, fun stuff. Well, I mean, if you think about an adolescent being, you know, a teenager, that's how you feel, or often you feel misunderstood and you want to get into the dark side of life, not that you know anything about it. And so Bacon, for me, he kind of spoke to me. I just thought, this is just amazing that someone does this. And also he was very articulate. When did you first see his paintings? I can't remember. I must have been about 13, 14.

9:22It's probably the triptych at the Tate, the figures first surrounding crucifixion. And then you read what he's written about himself and the interviews, and you see him in interviews, and he's incredibly charismatic. But it's true to say that, of course, that when you paint anything, you are also painting not only the subject, but you are painting yourself as well as the object that you're trying to record. Because it's a dual performance. For instance, if you look at a Rembrandt painting, you know, I feel I know very much more about Rembrandt than I do about the sitter. And he talks in a very interesting way about art, I felt.

10:00So I was absolutely smitten with him. And also at that time I was listening to a lot of goth music, because I was like a mini goth. That music and his work seemed to go perfectly together. Then you get to know more about him and his lifestyle, and you just think, wow, it's like a rock star. He lived, in a sense, a bit like a rock star, but super serious artist. And so I was very... It just worked for me at that time, for that teenage mind. It was just what I wanted and needed. and then quite madly I was doing my A-level art history project on him and I read everything I'd ever written about him, I felt.

10:34I went to the Tate archives and went through catalogues, looked at everything, I was just immersed in his world. And then one afternoon he had a show on at Marlborough Art Gallery, a commercial show. I got the afternoon off school, I had to get permission to go to see the show. And as I was in the show he walked in with his sister. And I was 16 or 17, you know, and I just thought, I've got to talk to him, got to talk to him. And all the flunkers from the gallery were all around him and I just walked up to him and said, can I just ask you some questions? And he gave me, as I remember it, a lot of his time, like ten minutes or more of his time.

11:09Were you writing this down? No, I was just trying to remember it. I was quite nervous, as you would be, but he was very kind to me and he was taking me very seriously. And the people from the gallery were almost physically trying to get me away from him and him away from me and he told them to go away. He said, I'm talking to the young man, leave me alone. And they all just disappeared. And then I said, would you sign a catalogue for me? And they couldn't find one. There was a big flurry and he was waiting. So it was a big deal, basically. But to meet him and to be treated with respect by him, I felt was, I was very impressed by that.

11:43And I loved him even more after that because he'd been nice to me. I hope you got an A star for this dissertation whenever you were writing. I mean, that's first-hand research. It was. I mean, and of course, everyone wants to interview an artist. you're writing about, but of course no one could get close to him. But just by bumping into him, totally by chance, he was there for me and we had a kind of semi-serious conversation. But also he was polite because, I mean, famously, he was very rude to people a lot of the time when they met him. Yes. Well, I think he was a bit surprised at someone in school uniform.

12:15And, you know, you've got to remember, I'm quite short, but when I was 17, I was really short. I probably looked like I was 11 or 12, and I think he was probably quite surprised that this, like, child was asking him quite serious questions about the relationship between his art and photography, because that was what my dissertation was about, and I was asking very specific questions about paintings, I think, and photographers, and what photographers he liked and why. And so it was... I think maybe he was a bit taken aback. That's an amazing encounter. Yeah. But I do remember him, like, look...

12:49I mean, I was short because I remember him sort of looking over me and looking down at me like that, so I must have been tiny. I can't remember. I was probably about five foot tall. Did Bacon inspire you to start your own painting at that time or draw? No, I would never attempt to sort of go down that route, that kind of fine arts, old master style painter. It just wasn't available to me. It is Jeremy Deller. Within the past hour, the winner of this year's Turner Prize has been announced and it's gone to a man who admits he can't paint or draw. Jeremy Deller was once told that he wasn't good enough to take an O-leveling art.

13:25But what has he won it for? Memory Bucket, a tour through George Bush's Texas. Then there's this.

13:37A brass band he encouraged to play acid house music. What about his recreation of the Battle of Orgreave? and minors and police from the actual event. It's really interesting that in 2004, when you won the Turner Prize, looking back at the report on the 10 o 'clock news, Hugh Edwards introduces it and says, almost surprised, that this is an artist who, by his own admission, can't paint or draw. Yeah. Were you, at the time, trying to reclaim the idea of what art was, do you think? Maybe I was trying to be mischievous and say that I can't do it. I was putting my hands up in admission, at least. I wouldn't say I was trying to tell the truth, but I was just putting it out there.

14:17Because, of course, art, like everything else in the world, has changed so much. And so it can't be like it was 200 years ago. I'd love to be able to draw and paint, but I can't. So I wasn't going to pretend that I'm that kind of artist. And it was very clear from what I did for the Turner Prize that I wasn't that kind of artist. But it became a big thing. But I don't know if now it would be such the same thing if the press would get so upset about it. I mean, I do believe that the press in Britain on the whole is way behind the public when it comes to accepting art. And I think I've learned that by working with the public on really quite difficult things.

14:50They understand complexity in the way that maybe the press don't or don't want to. What did winning the Turner Prize do for you as an artist at the time? Well, it's the classic, you know, you win the Turner Prize and then you start getting invited to things that you weren't invited to before. And that's the exact moment that you don't want to go to those things because you know they're only inviting you because of the Turner Prize. that sort of thing but i think it gives you you definitely get an upgrade it's something that will stay with you forever it'll be you know god forbid you know if or when an obituary is written that will be you know in the first line so a prize winning artist yeah and it's used all the time so it stays with you but it's fine isn't it it's good to have that it's not a problem it's not like you know disgraced artist or or whatever you know it's it's fine artist who can't paint or draw yeah I don't mind that either, frankly.

15:38You went to the Courtauld to study art history. So was the idea to become an art historian or a curator? Yeah, the idea was to be around art. But what was the plan? What would you have done with that degree? I think, you know, ideally, if you go to the Courtauld, especially then, it was the mid-'80s, it was a very odd, introverted, English-establishment-type place full of quite eccentric people, students and staff. It's kind of connoisseurship and old master paintings. That's what you were led to do. So you could have been a curator? Yes, I could, but it would have been terrible. I tried, after I graduated, I did try working in a museum as a volunteer, and it was a disaster because just nothing happens.

16:19You're sitting in an office. You're not spending time with art or looking at it. It's admin, and it just drove me nuts, and so I just knew I can't do this. I have to be more actively involved somehow. So what changed then? What made you an artist? Well, at the end of the first year at the Courtauld, I'd gone to an Andy Warhol and I'd met him. He'd signed something for me. And then I'd met him two nights later and spent time in his company and then gone to the factory and been there for a couple of weeks on and off and met him again a couple of times. And just being in his orbit and seeing his world and the world he'd created for himself was very...

17:01It kind of ruined me, really. You should just explain the factory, his headquarters in New York, which was his office, his studio, his film studio. Everything. He painted in the basement. So the factory was basically his world vision in a building and Interview Magazine was there and he had film production offices at the top and then there were business offices and then the basement and so on. So it was very exciting to be there. It wasn't the factory of the 1960s of the silver rooms and the people shooting up in the bathrooms and all that kind of stuff. It was more like being maybe in an advertising agency or something like that.

17:36But still, to know you were in the space that he'd created in his world, effectively. When you walked in, you were in his world. And you should just explain how you had won that invitation to spend time with him in New York. I mean, you obviously, after Bacon, you have some kind of skill for ingratiating yourself with superstar artists. Well, I mean, one of his entourage came up to me at the opening and just chatted to me. I think I was wearing a school uniform again. And it was probably why. Maybe not probably why, that's unfair. But again, I was dressed maybe in a way to get attention. But then everyone was in the 80s.

18:10That's how I felt. And he said, oh, what are you doing? I said, oh, blah, blah. And he said, oh, come and see us in our hotel on Thursday. And I went with a friend because I had no idea what to expect. I had no idea what was beyond the door when I went through. And there's actually a group of guys just sitting around watching telly. they were watching Benny Hill with the sound turned down and listening to a Roxy Music Greatest Hits tape on a cassette recorder and so we were just chatting to them and taking photographs in a way what you would do now if you met someone famous you'd just take loads of photographs which is what he did all the time he was 30 years ahead of us just wanting to document every meeting, every person and do something with it at some point he was well ahead of the game he kind of invented the 21st century And so he was there doing all that and we were chatting and it was quite relaxed and fun.

19:00Then he went off when we had dinner with all these other people. And then, you know, they do those invitations. Oh, you should come out to New York, come out to New York. But, you know, if anyone British says that to you, you know, I mean, please don't come out, basically. But I just thought, oh, I'm going to do this because otherwise I'll spend the rest of my life regretting not doing it. And when you arrived in New York a few weeks later, was it hello again, Jeremy? Or who are you? I met my mate Chris because he'd come with me originally. I just thought it'd be probably better being with someone else because I just didn't know what to expect, really.

19:31They sort of remembered us and we were filmed for a TV programme which was never used, but we were just hanging out, really, and just, like, breathing it in. As an experience at that age, to be with someone who's sort of mythic, he was mythic then, was amazing. And, of course, when someone like that dies, you just can't believe that they're mortal. I couldn't believe that he would die. I just thought he'd live forever, basically. What did that do for your creative imagination? That must have changed everything, that moment. Well, when you see how people work and how they live, he just seemed to be having a great time, which, of course, he wasn't, but it just seemed like he was having the best time.

20:05And wherever he was was the centre of the universe. That's how I felt. Did you take anything from the way the factory was run or Warhol's role there in the factory into the work that you did and the way that you worked subsequently? I liked the way that he saw no boundaries between any media. He would do whatever he wanted and he would go from one thing to another, from running a magazine to music to TV production to painting. I loved that expansiveness. There were no rules, it seemed. And I liked his attitude as well. He was quite mischievous. He had the air of a sort of grumpy teenager or a teenager who didn't want to engage with the adult world or wanted to do their own thing.

20:44And so for me that was very interesting. I really liked that. Apart from the grumpiness there, you sound like you're describing your own work and your practice and your attitude to art. Maybe grumpy is the wrong word, but maybe moody and just, you know, the monosyllabic interviews and things like that. I really like that. But the multifaceted nature of the work. I mean, that's something it's very hard to pin down the sort of work that Jeremy Deller does. Yes. I mean, that's because, well, because I do lots of different things and I just say yes to most opportunists because I feel I have to. So you have to be open, don't you, as an artist?

21:18I think you have to be really open because you never know where things go. And so that's, I've sort of kept the openness. Your next choice for this cultural life is, it's not a single moment, it's a period of time, 1989 to 1996, going out. We're talking about nightlife, clubbing. Yes. I was living with my parents, so I wanted to be out as much as possible, and I suspect they did as well, wanting me to be out and about. and I worked in a shop in Covent Garden and so that gave me an incredible social life. I just liked being in places with music being loud. House music, raves? Yes, and then indie music and that crossover and all sorts of music.

21:58I mean, it's probably why now my hearing is in such a state. So it was the music then rather than the sense of community? It was both, really. It was more of a music. A lot of the times when I went out, I'd be by myself or if I was with someone, I wouldn't really talk to anyone. I didn't go to sort of chat up girls or whatever. That was just too terrifying. So go on, take us back. Where are you and what are you dancing to? I mean, OK, it's like 1990. I mean, not at some trendy rave or anything like that. I'm in a nightclub in Beckenham called Langtry's, which is this incredible club on two floors.