An unconventional approach of art

Le Palais de Tokyo is a well-known art center dedicated to contemporary creation. Far away from immaculate walls of museums, this site of discoveries has accustomed its visitors to be astonished by the themes proposed and the pieces presented.
This time, Le Palais de Tokyo goes further in the interrogation of art in its meaning. Giving a free hand to Jeremy Deller, the art center introduces a reflection around its future as an artistic institution. Actually, the exhibition “From One Revolution to Another” is, first of all, a revolution in the way to consider art production places. Does it only deal with the aesthetic and market of art or could it get into places dedicated to reflection on world around us?

Whatever the answer, the exhibition is a one shot attempt in this direction. Indeed, Jeremy Deller has brought many pictures and objects together, which are precisely not thought as “art”. Moreover, most of the personalities he invited to participate to this exhibition are not artists, strictly speaking. Pieces are not presented for their aesthetic value but for their charge of history. Some of it could be beautiful, funny or sticking but the point is that all of them attest of a part of revolution.

Revolutions for a definition

The purpose of this exhibition is to show up the links between industrial and cultural revolutions, which made History. Consequently, all these unclassifiable pieces exposed give us the feeling of a social and anthropological approach, even if Jeremy Deller doesn’t consider himself as a scientist. Even, he refuses to theorize his work. He explained that he just has been touched by all this micro-revolutions he bumped into during his life and wanted to show us some snapshots from it. In the end, Jeremy Deller made a work of collection and archive.

Revolution? How such pieces coming from popular traditions (as painted eggs, flowered pants or a mechanical elephant), presented in the main room “Folk archive”, could be revolutions? Jeremy Deller considers, in parallel of the great historical periods as the industrial revolution, that each creation made by a man could be a real revolution in itself. It is about changing its own life or trying to have influence on the others ones by amuse them during a village party for example. All actions created in the aim to establish social ties could be considerate as a resistance to impersonality of life and then, as a revolution.

Within the framework of our English tuition, we have made the choice to focus our project on the British popular culture through the exhibition “From One Revolution to Another” at Le Palais de Tokyo. Of course, we are not pretending to draw an exhaustive definition of what is, in essence, a moving entity. Indeed, it is just a try to reveal some particularities of a singular folk.

Extract interview Jeremy Deller (1/2)

You were given a carte blanche for your coming exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo. How did it happen? Were you entirely free?

Jeremy Deller : I was approached by the director of the Palais de Tokyo a few years back but I didn’t really think about it seriously until last year. You do have artistic freedom more or less but I think the major curtailment on the artist is the budget.

At the Palais de Tokyo you show the Folk Archive which is a collection of objects and photographs from the British folk culture. Can such an archive travel and be understood in another country such as France?

JD : Yes of course it can be appreciated. It’s like saying "can Delacroix be understood by the English?" Because something is very English/French whatever doesn’t mean it does not translate, this is a different language to the written word. The Folk Archive already travelled to Serbia and Switzerland and people enjoyed it and found it very entertaining. There is a universal element to it, you don’t need a translation. And some things in the archive are unusual for English people as well.

Why did you decide to show the Folk Archive in Paris?

JD : Well, for practical reasons it is a big ready made exhibition that could at least begin to fill the huge space that is the Palais de Tokyo, so it seemed natural to do. It is also interesting to show a very British thing outside of the Motherland as it were.

This Folk Archive is different from the one you exhibited in 2005 at the Barbican in London?

JD : The display is the same, the order might change a little. The version for Paris is an expanded version, there is six shows in total. Ed Hall, a banner maker, is getting his own retrospective of banners made in the last twenty five-years. Most banners are for trade unions and pressure groups and in some respects tell a story about social history of the last twenty years. There is an exhibition on the French rock scene and the story of Golf-Drouot, a Parisian night club from the early sixties late fifties, another one about the industrial revolution in Britain and its relationship to pop music and also a show about early electronic music in Russia.

The Folk Archive is often described as objects made by amateurs, not by artists. Does the status of these objects matter to you?

JD : I’m not interested in getting into authorship, amateur, folk, etc arguments. That’s probably because I didn’t go to any art school, for me the rules for being an artist did not exist. I think there is a massive snobbery about art and who is and who isn’t an artist. For example, State Britain by Mark Wallinger was restaged as an artwork but the critics loved it. But if for example they had the original object in Tate, a lot of those critics wouldn’t have liked it. That’s the kind of snobbery you’re against when you’re showing the Folk Archive and you’re actually showing the original thing, you’re not showing an artist’s interpretation of it.

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.

Bibliography : The cultural studies

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