Jeremy Deller

Jeremy Deller (b. London, 1966) studied Art History at the Courtauld Institute and at Sussex University, where he did an MA. 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, bringing together almost 1,000 people in a public re-enactment of a violent confrontation from the 1984 Miners’ Strike. Since winning the Turner Prize in 2004, he has made many documentaries on subjects ranging from exotic wrestler Adrian Street to the history of the acid house movement in Everybody in the Place. In 2012 the Hayward Gallery, London mounted the first comprehensive survey of his career in an exhibition titled Joy In People and in 2013 Deller was chosen to represent Britain in the 55th Venice Biennale. The Vinyl Factory first collaborated with Deller to release a record by a busker named Chuck, who performed cover versions on the South Bank. The Vinyl Factory subsequently partnered with Deller to produce and release the musical soundtrack to his Venice Biennale film installation, which was recorded with a steel pan orchestra at Abbey Road Studios.