Turner Prize Jeremy Deller To Represent Britain At Venice Biennale

Turner Prize winner Jeremy Deller has been chosen to represent Britain at next year’s Venice Biennale. Deller will be given a solo exhibition at the British Pavilion from June to November 2013, following in the footsteps of artists such as Tracey Emin, Anish Kapoor, and Lucian Freud.

‘I really don’t know what I’m going to do’, said Deller: ‘I was a bit daunted at first, but now I’m looking forward to it, I think. I haven’t even seen the pavilion empty, so that’s probably the first thing to do.’

Chris Dercon, Director of the Tate Modern and one of the panel members responsible for the selection, believes Deller to be an ‘exciting and daring choice’; ‘He is a master of an art which is very different from most contemporary art production. His observations and actions, invoking and depicting the harsh morals of contemporary life, are incredibly precise yet full of comical relief. Deller’s art is representing British culture at its best: it is an art of the real – poignant and often confrontational – yet full of compassion and never dull.’

Similarly, Andrea Rose, Director of Visual Arts at the British Council, concurs with Dercon’s sentiment: ‘Wry, and very light on his feet, Deller has a great ability to draw together all sorts of people and communities and orchestrate them into unexpected patterns. He’s a sort of pied piper of popular culture.’

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