- Venue
- Glasgow Green
- Location
Bouncing on a life size inflatable replica of an English Heritage Site is the only true way to rid yourself of the classy next day feeling you get after a 12 hour champagne launch party hangover.
Lying on a Saturday morning with my face pressed down on the table in the CCA cafe trying to not to be sick from too much art and fun the night before. I am trapped in a reoccurring argument about the faults of the Karla Black at the GOMA Vs the benefits of a fanciful arrangement of cellophane… I am not a fan – others it appears are. I hate the top part, the plastic’s an unnecessary add on that destroys the work below. The sawdust says everything I think the piece needs to say and the contradictions inherent in its structure and material being enough to keep me interested momentarily. It’s monumental and its ephemeral, I get it and I like it. Don’t hang the plastic overhead, now its bad. It reminds me of an old Chanel quote “Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and remove one accessory.” All this is obviously only my opinion, a personal view that I am now repeating over and over to an ever-increasing army of Karla Fans.
The discussion is interrupted by a text from home. Mum’s suddenly in on the debate, not about Black (although she saw the other Karla piece in the last GOMA exhibition and was not a fan.) Mums have an odd habit of cropping up at large scale art events and breaking important news to their artist children without really knowing it. My Mum was one of the first people to see the Anish Kapoor piece at the Venice Biennial last year when site seeing with a friend in Italy. (Judging by her text back then she was not impressed and not that easy to please!) This time she’d seen Jeremy Deller on BBC Breakfast and is hyper excited! Rumors had been rife the night before about what the Deller is or might turn out to be. Though it was supposedly under wraps, word had leaked out to those in the know. However the official morning BBC announcement had been made whilst all the GI goers were eating hotel breakfasts, too busy twirling cereal turbines or having power smoothies to care. Everyone’s Mum loves an artwork once it’s featured on BBC Breakfast and she had text clear instructions that we must visit it immediately and report back. Mum also added that she thought Deller was an ‘intelligent man’ a phrase she had only used once before to describe Shaun Caton, a performance artist who she met once in a pub in York.
So with the hangovers’ guilt in place we boarded a coach and set off to Glasgow Green. Its hard to recall exactly what happened next, it exists in my mind as a blur of Facebook profile picture worthy moments and excitable tweets #livefromthedeller.
Curators being hit in the face by their own press pass when it’s caught in the breeze on the jump up. Children taken out by smartly dressed adults as they run around the perimeter of the ‘henge. (which, thanks to some unknown scientific reason makes them run faster than they ever thought they could, causing a temporarily apt Olympian feeling.) The elderly ‘face planting’ after the obligatory ‘in air forward roll on a bouncy castle’ move. The art worlds top critical thinkers embroiled in some kind of fun house carnage. It’s hard to know what to say really. It raised a lot of questions and has subsequently propelled me into some kind of inner conflict.
No I don’t know why it cost so much, and I don’t know if it is a justifiable amount to spend given the UK’s current arts funding situation. I don’t know if he stole the idea from Jim Ricks (like everyone says on The Guardian comments page). I don’t know why the press photo shows a chirpy Deller bouncing alongside primary school children whilst wearing a 90’s inspired tie die long sleeve top and holding what appears to be a radio. I don’t know why they took Stonehenge to Scotland. I don’t know if it actually is life size… I also genuinely don’t know if any of this matters.
Maybe I have just gone a bit Allan Kaprow, or maybe it really is just about the moment. The moment which levels all things economic, social and educational, where no matter who you are you will have already taken off your shoes before you have even reached the queue. Our response to this is inbuilt, its genetic and its all consuming. ‘GET ME ON THE DELLER’ is what people shout as the push past. They don’t even know they said it; it just fell out of their mouths as they were running. It’s cool to be critical, so the odds were stacked against Sacrilege right from the start, but I have given in. Like so many of Jeremy Deller’s works, I don’t want to like them but I do. Sometimes we shit ourselves because fun stuff isn’t serious, but this work is testament to the fact that sometimes it is actually the thing of most value.
It seems legendary because it is. My mum said so.
Review by Elizabeth Murphy – Current Director of Royal Standard and is an artist, curator and lecturer based in the North West.
