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English Magic
by Jeremy Deller
United Kingdom 2013, 14′
Presented at Lo schermo dell’arte 2019
Shooting: Stephen Pook
Soundtrack: The Vinyl Factory
Soundtrack: The Vinyl Factory
Editing: Nick Fenton
Language: Sound
Language: Sound
Made for the British Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale, English Magic’s visual and thematic elements reflect Deller’s interest in the roots underlying British society: its cultural, socio-political and economic history, its icons and its myths. By staging events from the past, present and an imaginary near-future, Deller interweaves high and low, refined and popular, to create an intentionally provocative work. Following an almost psychedelic narrative, including hawks and owls in flight, car demolitions, costumed parades and inflatable reproductions of Stonehenge, where the music, performed and recorded by the Melodian Steel Orchestra of South London in the legendary Abbey Road Studios studio 2 gives rhythm to the images and lends a dreamy atmosphere, the film oscillates between documentary and fiction, reality and imagination.
British artist Jeremy Deller, trained as an art historian, works with video, installation and performance on themes of popular and folk culture. He’s developed an ironic narrative suspended between reality and fiction. He’s interested in the mechanisms on which contemporary societies are structured and in the disparate experiences and relationships of individuals. He makes critical use of the stereotypes spread in society, especially those related to political, economic and religious powers. Winner of the Turner Prize in 2004. Among his solo exhibitions: Sacrilege, Fondazione Nicola Trussardi, Milan (2018); English Magic, British Pavilion, 55th Venice Biennale (2013); Joy in People, Hayward Gallery, London (2012); It Is What It Is: Conversations About Iraq, Creative Time and New Museum, New York, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, and Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2009); Procession, Cornerhouse, Manchester (2009); D’une révolution à l’autre. Carte blanche à Jeremy Deller, Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2008).
Selected Filmography
2019 Putin’s Happy 2018 Everybody in the Place: An Incomplete History of Britain 1984-1992
2014 All That Is Solid Melts Into Air 2013 English Magic 2012 The Bruce Lacey Experience
2006 Our Hobby Is Depeche Mode 2001 The Battle of Orgreave
2019 Putin’s Happy 2018 Everybody in the Place: An Incomplete History of Britain 1984-1992
2014 All That Is Solid Melts Into Air 2013 English Magic 2012 The Bruce Lacey Experience
2006 Our Hobby Is Depeche Mode 2001 The Battle of Orgreave