Extract interview Jeremy Deller (2/2)

Do you think that’s the reason why the Folk Archive got really bad critics in the UK?

JD : Absolutely so, they could not believe they had to review a show of artworks by people they didn’t know and who were anonymous. They lost some kind of authority and in a way it threatened themselves. One reviewer was so angry that she said “By showing this work in London in a gallery you are depriving real artists for space to show their work”. We couldn’t think she was being serious but she was. There is a real moment where you think, oh shit, that’s what the art world is really about…

Did some critics think you were actually making fun of the people shown in the Folk Archive ?

JD : You always get that ! That’s the first thing they say, that we are exploiting those people and that they don’t realize what’s happening when they have their work shown. But the people you see in the archive know their work is funny. Most critics think those people are not as intelligent as everyone else because they’re not artists or in the artworld or in London. In the exhibition, there are one show about the industrial revolution in Britain and in some way, it’s about loosing contact with the countryside. There is a suspicion of things made in the countryside.

Most of the archive is extremely funny, why did Alan Kane and you treat it in a very objective and serious way?

JD : We wanted it to be displayed clearly and carefully not in a chaotic way, we were not interested in making an artwork of the show. It is shown in a very straight way but the humour remains. If it were shown in a chaotic way with funny works in it, I think it would loose the humour.

Your artistic practice has been described as one of an artist/ethnographer. What do you think about it?

JD : To be honest I try not to think about how I am viewed, I haven’t studied either !

Parades are a recurring motif in your work. You seem to enjoy public events...

JD : I’m just drawn to public displays of any kind, parades are very appealing because of the music and also they hold a mirror up to daily reality. It’s not unusal. I think everyone enjoy public events, we’re all curious people. It’s part of human nature to be curious and interested in something happening in the streets or in the public sphere in general, it’s part of our social make up.

Parades and exhibitions are both public events. Do they have something in common for you?

JD : Not really, exhibitions are only semi public in my opinion. For instance, the entrance is not free. And then on the other hand, art exhibitions are now treated like spectacular events, people expect that from art exhibitions. This exhibition in Paris is definitively not spectacular, it is a very traditionnal exhibition with just objects and images.