Art Is Magic: a children's book for adults by

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The venue for the event was a deconsecrated church with very understanding hosts. The Murdochs burned for 12 hours. By the end, Lachlan’s face had fallen off. Rupert’s stayed on, but now bowed slightly. Of late, his work seems less playful. Putin’s Happy is a case in point, but also Father and Son, which was commissioned by the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, and comprised lifesize wax candles of Rupert Murdoch and his son Lachlan, which slowly melted over 12 hours in a deconsecrated Melbourne church. The work was a response to the Murdoch press amplifying conspiracy theories that arsonists played a major role in the devastating Australian wildfires of 2019 and 2020. “I usually don’t make such blunt statements,” he says, “but, with them, it was about the damage they have done to the world through their media empire. I wanted to create a contemporary secular image that echoed classical religious art, and make it as grisly and beautiful as I could.” Interview with Jeremy Deller and Sophie Kaplan, La Criée Centre of Contemporary Art, Saturday June 10, Jeremy Deller’s new book, which he describes as “a sort of retrospective”, is called Art Is Magic. It reflects his belief in the alchemical power of art to transform the everyday – “if only for a moment, making the mundane profound”. He did, however, consider several other alternative titles for the book, including “That’s Not Art”, “Call That Art?” and “You Can’t Do That” , all of which are things people have said to him about his work. There’s also music from the Melodians Steel Orchestra, magic in front of your very eyes, and moves from progressive morris dancing group Boss Morris.

I put myself and other people who were doing that at great personal risk. I mean, how would you know what the reaction would be to that in the Deep South? On the first day we started, we were in a campervan, towing the car, and the American soldier and the Iraqi civilian – both of whom had been in life threatening situations – looked really nervous. And I thought, ‘If you’re worried, then I should be really worried because you’ve been in war situations.’ But actually, on the whole, it was amazing to meet Americans face to face, without any of the fluff or hype around it, and just chat to them.” Which historical era should people pay more attention to? The one that’s just passed; the previous five years. Revealingly, he describes Art Is Magic as “a book about an artist rather than an artist’s book”. To this end, it is designed, he says, “to look a bit like one of those annuals you’d get for Christmas when you were a kid”. It is subtitled “a children’s book for adults”, which somewhat underplays the provocative political undertow of some of the projects described within, whether it is his epic reenactment of the “Battle of Orgreave” during the miners’ strike or his 2019 film Putin’s Happy, which captures the febrile atmosphere of the Brexit protests in Parliament Square. “The book is written in my own words,” he explains, “and the tone I was aiming for is someone sitting in a pub chatting to you about what they’ve been up to. I hope the book demystifies things, explains my motivations, and sheds some light on what I do.” It’s quite aprovocative thing to do, showing ablown-up car from [what was] effectively acivil war that Americans were involved in. It was really ajourney into the unknown, which is stressful, but exciting. It was aconstant sort of psychological state, weighing up situations with people and just trying to treat everyone the same. Much has been written about Deller over the decades, but this is the first time he has pulled together his own account of his influences. Come to hear him discuss them with the author of Dance Your Way Home, Emma Warren.

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I think it’s pushing the envelope of what is acceptable to be called art and what are its limits, if there are any. What exists on the fringes is always interesting to me. So, things like [re-enacting The Battle of] Orgreave or taking the car destroyed by a bomb in Iraq around America are pushing the limits of what can be considered a work or a project or a performance. Are there limits? Where is the outer ring? And how can we go there?

What makes a good music documentary? One that lives in the moment, that speaks to the protagonist rather than about the protagonist. So ones that are made at the time about things going on at the time, rather than things that are retrospective.I suppose if you don’t go to art college, you don’t really know what the rules are,” he says. ​ “Maybe that’s the thing: the unwritten rules – doing whatever you can get away with. Iknew Ididn’t have technical talents as such, Ijust had to use my wits.” What are you currently working on? Well, apart from this book and all the promotion, something at the National Gallery. His best-known work, The Battle of Orgreave, is both. It entailed two years of deep research and a cast of 1,000 former miners and historical war ‘reenactors’, whom he assembled in a windy field near Sheffield in 2001 to reenact the infamous confrontation between police and striking miners that took place near the Orgreave coking plant in 1984. In the book, he calls it “my Stairway to Heaven” and suggests that it may be “the one work that may outlive me”. Art Is Magic features work from across Deller’s life and art – much of it never seen before – alongside images which have inspired him.

Deller’s greatest work has taken place beyond gallery walls. Think of The Battle of Orgreave (2001), a 1000-person re-enactment of a clash between police and striking miners in 1984, for which Deller recruited a cast of ex-miners and battle re-enactors. Or We’re Here Because We’re Here (2016), his First World War memorial work, in which 1,400 young men in authentic military uniforms appeared, unheralded and unexplained, in public spaces around the UK on 1 July, the centenary of the Battle of the Somme. The Art is Magic exhibition provides a broad overview of Deller’s work from the 1990s to the present day, focusing on 15 major projects and key works that have marked his career. In addition, the event marks the publication of the first retrospective of the artist’s work in French. One retrospective, three worldsTo reach this entrance, enter the Royal Festival Hall via the Southbank Centre Square Doors. Take the JCB Glass Lift to Level 2 and exit to the Riverside Terrace. Turn right to find the Queen Elizabeth Hall main entrance. It was first inflated in Glasgow in 2012, before being absorbed into the Olympic cultural celebrations. It toured the UK, and later went abroad, where it was hammered by typhoons in Hong Kong and a heatwave in Australia. I liked the idea of Stonehenge touring – turning up in your local park unannounced, then disappearing after a day, becoming a part of folk memory. The Olympic movement can be so pompous, taking itself so seriously with all these weird rituals and hierarchies, a bit like a religion. A country or institution that can’t laugh at itself is in trouble, and Sacrilege was my attempt to help with this situation. It allowed you to bounce about and fall over a founding myth. What’s the greatest compliment you’ve ever received? I try to not think about compliments, I find them difficult to receive. Mini versions were produced to pay for the inevitable overspend, giving the public the opportunity to burn their own rightwing chaos merchants at their leisure.