This was the first idea proposed by Jeremy Deller after he was commissioned by TfL to design the cover of an edition of the London Underground map, distributed free of charge in all stations. The proposed design initially featured a bicycle, composed of the colors representing the different lines on the Tube map.
It was rejected, as it conveyed a message that could – according to the commissioner – confuse some users of the London Underground service, since bicycle access was not permitted on all lines.

The commissioner was TfL – Transport for London, the authority responsible for transportation in the London area – within the framework of the Art on the Underground project, which invites contemporary artists to create both temporary and permanent works for the London Underground environment. Jeremy Deller then designed the cover of the Tube map together with artist Paul Ryan. The work, presented on July 1, 2007, is still visible at http://art.tfl.gov.uk/projects/detail/1119/.
It consists of a portrait of John Hough, who was then the longest-serving member of TfL staff.

]]> http://hdl.handle.net/1889/2101]]> Jeremy Deller proposed a structure similar to Stonehenge, or simply menhir-like, to mark the entrances and exits of the Olympic Park, which was to host stadiums and other facilities in London in 2012. The deliberate ambiguity lay in creating a structure—although contemporary—that appeared to pre-exist its context and to foreshadow a possible fate of ruin for all the structures within this high-tech area. At the same time, it referred to the values associated with Stonehenge, an icon of British identity whose meaning remains largely unknown.
Read more.]]> http://hdl.handle.net/1889/2103]]> Jeremy Deller, invited to the Carnegie International in 2004, presented this project—which can be linked to a broader series of research and reflections on the contemporary war in Iraq—with the intention of displaying one of his large banners on the museum’s façade, recalling the one used as a backdrop by President George W. Bush during a speech. This banner bore the words “Mission Accomplished.”

In the image, beside the banner, there are two Post-it notes referring, respectively, to the display—also on the façade—of a photograph (taken from existing documentation) showing Donald Rumsfeld, then President Reagan’s special envoy to the Middle East, meeting Saddam Hussein in 1983; and to an ambiguous flyer posted on the doors of some houses in Florida during the 2000 presidential election, which refers to what the artist considers a Republican Party strategy to discourage opposing voters. The flyer falsely stated that, in order to vote, all fines had to be paid, and also indicated an incorrect election date.

As reported by the artist himself, the theme of the work was “just too raw at the time.” Instead, for the exhibition Breaking News (Dedicated to Peter Watkins), he created a site-specific work for the miniature rooms at the Carnegie Museum of Art, where he overlapped models and reconstructions of ancient battles with architectural elements, period furnishings, and a television transmitting images.

Read more.]]> http://hdl.handle.net/1889/2097]]> The project consisted of inviting an icon of popular culture – such as Iggy Pop – to pose, without revealing his identity to the students, as a model for a drawing class. The results of these sessions would then be donated and preserved at the Smithsonian Institution. The artist’s research here focuses on the importance of preserving the social content and values related to pop music and its enjoyment, placing them in a broader cultural context, and, in particular, on the role that certain bands and musicians play for specific communities of fans or, as in this case, for a heterogeneous and often unaware public.
The document is a drawing by Sarah Tynan and serves as an example of what could have been the outcome of the class’s work.
The project was organized by the Brooklyn Museum in 2016.
Read more.]]> http://hdl.handle.net/1889/2099]]> Jeremy Deller with these two projects, both developed in 2008 for the public art project connected to the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square, proposes an anti-monumental and deeply political vision, working – in his own words – more from the perspective of a citizen than from that of an artist, and remaining closely connected to the contemporary situation of a country, then involved in the Iraq War.

The first proposal is a life-size statue of David Kelly, the British scientist whose death, officially ruled a suicide, followed statements he had made to the media expressing doubts about the alleged presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the subsequent parliamentary inquiry.

The second proposal, entitled The Spoils of War, consists of exhibiting the wreckage of a car destroyed by a bomb in Iraq, thus bringing a trace of the war to what has for centuries been the heart of the British Empire and is still universally recognized as a place of strong monumental character.