10.54103/ai/19792
"I wanted to make a memorial that was alive, not an object or set of objects to make a pilgrimage to; a memorial that would come to you, that would appear in your city, town or shopping centre, intervening in your daily life". With these words Jeremy Deller introduces us to his We Are Here Because We Are Here, a true monument celebrating the centenary of the Battle of the Somme on 1st July 1916, in which almost twenty thousand British soldiers succumbed. In fact, with the help of Rufus Norris, director of the National Theatre, Deller organised a gigantic mass performance in which about 2000 volunteers worked, disguised as soldiers of the First World War who wandered around the main cities of the United Kingdom without anyone having warned the citizens of their presence.
In my paper I will try to investigate, through Deller's work (and through the comparison with other artistic experiences), how some contemporary artistic interventions try to exploit the mechanisms of performance in order to reconstruct historical events not only relying on the strategies of re-enactment, but also resorting to an immersive and unexpected relationship able to produce an extreme involvement. We Are Here Because We Are Here thus contributes to the reconstruction of memory not through the description of historical facts, nor even through their celebration, but through a process that solicits the emotional states to which, in the harshest moments of the war, the community is subjected.
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2785-7433
19792
I
en
Roberto Pinto
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
AN-ICON. Studies in Environmental Images [ISSN 2785-7433]
We’re here because we’re here
History and Stories through Jeremy Deller’s Performances
Text.Serial.Journal
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2
Thematic Section
2023-12-28
2023-01-31
2023-12-28
2024-02-23
AN-ICON
Roberto Pinto
2023/12/28
10.54103/ai/19792
University of Bologna
2785-7433
I
We’re here because we’re here
en
Young, J.E., “The Counter-Monument: Memory against Itself in Germany Today,” Critical Inquiry 18, no. 2 (1992): 267-296.
History and Stories through Jeremy Deller’s Performances
https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/anicon/article/download/19792/20023
2
               History and Stories
               through Jeremy
Deller’s Performances
by Roberto Pinto
          Jeremy Deller
                   Public art
                   Mass performance
                   14-18 now
                   We’re here because we’re here




                     Issue №1                Year 2023
                     → Immersions and Dives: From
                     the Environment to Virtual Reality
                     Edited by Roberto P. Malaspina,
                     Elisabetta Modena, and Sofia Pirandello
History and Stories
through Jeremy Deller’s
Performances
ROBERTO PINTO, Università di Bologna – https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1559-5759
https://doi.org/10.54103/ai/19792



Abstract                       “I wanted to make a memorial that was alive,
                  not an object or set of objects to make a pilgrimage to; a
                  memorial that would come to you, that would appear in your
                  city, town or shopping centre, intervening in your daily life.”
                  With these words, Jeremy Deller introduces us to his We’re
                  Here Because We’re Here, created as part of the events
                  commemorating the First World War. With the help of Rufus
                  Norris, director of the National Theatre, Deller organised a
                  gigantic mass performance in which some 2,000 volunteers
                  disguised as World War I soldiers wandered around the
                  main cities of the United Kingdom without anyone having
                  warned the citizens of their presence. Through this work by
                  Deller (and by comparing it with other artistic experiences),
                  the text intends to investigate how some contemporary
                  artistic interventions seek to exploit the mechanisms of
                  performance in order to reconstruct historical events not
                  only by relying on the strategies of re-enactment, but also
                  by resorting to an immersive relationship linked to the un-
                  expected capable of producing extreme involvement, a
                  process that solicits the emotional states to which, in the
                  harshest moments of war, the community is subjected.

Keywords          Jeremy Deller               Public art               Mass performance
                  14-18 now                   We’re here because we’re here
To quote this essay: R. Pinto, “History and Stories through Jeremy Deller’s Performances,” AN-ICON. Studies
in Environmental Images [ISSN 2785-7433] 2, no. 1 (2023): 88-100, https://doi.org/10.54103/ai/19792.

ROBERTO PINTO                                       88                                           AN-ICON
A memorial that would come to you, that would appear in your city,
town or shopping centre, intervening in your daily life1
                            The topic (and issue) of monuments and the
              commemoration of historical events has been at the centre
              of debate in recent decades. There have been many dis-
              cussions – in public, within more academic contexts and
              in art institutions – on the question: can statues or, more
              generally, artistic events still be – and how – valuable tools
              for activating processes of remembrance and re-elabora-
              tion of collective mourning or past tragic events?
                            There have also been many striking and spec-
              tacular interventions/performances questioning the value of
              these objects inherited from a past often marked by more
              than one dark side. We could sum the matter up with these
              questions: just because they are part of our tradition, are
              they still able to represent us? Do they have the right to con-
              tinue to be considered as common symbols to be shared?
              Or should they be transformed into artistic artefacts that
              need to be historically contextualised and become part
              of museum heritage? (On the grounds that museums are
              better suited to preserving such artefacts and providing ac-
              curate descriptions of the context from which they come.)
              Among the many recent episodes, I believe everyone still
              has in mind the demolition of the monument to Edward
              Colston, “benefactor” and slave trader, on 7 June 2020 in
              Bristol, an event that took place in the emotional aftershock
              of the killing of George Floyd in the United States and the
              Black Lives Matter movement.
                            In today’s climate, there is no shortage of harsh
              criticism of institutions when they struggle to adapt to the
              demands of groups and communities who do not feel rep-
              resented at all and, arguably, express an expectation that
              some of the fundamental rights of all people should be

      1 J. Deller, R. Norris, We’re here because we’re here (London: Thames and Hudson, 2017): 61.

ROBERTO PINTO                                  89                                         AN-ICON
              respected. This is all the more so when dealing with sym-
              bols in shared and important places, such as statues and
              monuments. In this context, the initiative by British institu-
              tions to create a complex and cohesive project to mark the
              centenary of the First World War in an attempt to experi-
              ment with new ways of sharing seems to me a fascinating
              case study. It is clear that, whichever way one reads this
              historical event, one cannot ignore the fact that it was, in
              every respect, a long and devastating war. The initiative
              was a harsh testing ground for artists and institutions, given
              the risk of falling into the rhetoric of patriotic ideals and the
              celebration of the courage and daring of the participants,
              which had until now been indispensable prerequisites for
              celebrations of historical events such as this.
                            The UK Arts Programme was the promoter of
              14-18 NOW, a genuinely diverse and cohesive programme
              that saw the creation of 107 projects, the involvement of
              420 artists2 using different media (theatre, cinema, visual
              arts, poetry, music) which, in most cases, were hybrid forms.
              It is also worth emphasising the very high level of the artists
              involved; they included Gillian Wearing, John Akomfrah,
              Raqs Media Collective, Tobias Rehberger, Yinka Shonibare,
              Suzanne Lacy, Rachel Whiteread, Mark Wallinger, Ryoji
              Ikeda, and William Kentridge.3 Many had already dealt with
              contemporary history and the related political problems on
              their journey. It should therefore be seen as an act of cour-
              age on the part of the promoting body – and of recognising
              the issues underlying an anniversary that could lend itself
              to controversy and misunderstanding – that they identified
              artists sensitive to cultural and political commitment who
              were well aware of the nature and extent of the dangers
              inherent in a project commemorating a war. One of the

      2 According to its official website the project commissioned works from 420 artists, and
      engaged 35 million people. “About 14-18 Now,” 14-18 Now, https://www.1418now.org.uk/
      about/, accessed December 15, 2022.
      3 For the full list see https://www.1418now.org.uk/artists/, accessed December 15, 2022.

ROBERTO PINTO                                 90                                        AN-ICON
              aims of this event was, therefore, to try to change the nar-
              rative that has been made of the history told by European
              nations mainly through the arts, which have reconstructed
              and told it exclusively from the point of view of their specific
              national identities.4
                           Within this experimentation, I would like to
              place as a case study We’re here because we’re here by
             Jeremy Deller – created in collaboration with Rufus Norris
             – because, perhaps more than any other, it seems to me
              symbolic of the ability to put forward attractive solutions
              that directly address the role the public takes on in com-
              memorations and make the experience as multi-sensorial
              and engaging as possible. Elements that are the leitmotif
              of Immersed in the Work. From the Environment to Virtual
              Reality. In doing so, I would at least like to point out the proj-
              ects Across and In-Between by Suzanne Lacy5 and Pages
              of the Sea by Danny Boyle,6 which adopt an approach in
              many ways similar to the work of the London-based artist.
                           Throughout his career, Jeremy Deller has often
              chosen subjects related to history and politics and has
              always used a collaborative and participatory approach
              right from the design phase. His artistic practices have

      4 In order to clarify the position of the planners, the words of Margaret MacMillan, who, in
      the introduction to the volume collecting information on 14-18 Now, explains “Governments
      often want to tidy up the past and impose a single unified version of what happened back
      then - at Waterloo, say, or the Battle of the Somme. But there can be no one view. Women,
      men, diverse ethnic groups, religions or social classes, start from different viewpoints, and
      what they see in the past may be guided by that. So marking the 100th anniversary of the
      First World War, that vast and destructive struggle from 1914 to 1918, was never going to be
      easy. We can agree that it was a catastrophe that destroyed the old confident Europe and
      left a strangely and irrevocably altered world. Beyond that there are, and always have been,
      profound differences over how we remember and commemorate that war. We still cannot
      agree on how it started or why it went on for so long, and we still debate its meaning and
      its legacy a century later.” J. Waldman, M. MacMillan, eds., 14-18 Now: Contemporary Arts
      Commissions for the First World War Centenary (Profile: London, 2019). See also within the
      same volume the essay by David Olusoga. Cfr D. Olusoga, “Art as a lens: Re-Globalising the
      First War,” ibid.: 12-13.
      5 Suzanne Lacy’s work, made between 18 and 23 October 2018, on the occasion of the
      centenary of Ireland’s Declaration of Independence (and the subsequent border that has since
      divided Northern Ireland from Éire) aims to investigate borders and the influence they have
      had on our lives. See: https://www.1418now.org.uk/commissions/across-and-in-between/,
      accessed December 15, 2022.
      6 Boyle’s work, Pages of the Sea, took place on 11 November 2018 and was intended to
      celebrate the centenary of the Armistice. See “On 11 November 2018,” Pages of The Sea,
      https://www.pagesofthesea.org.uk, accessed December 15, 2022.

ROBERTO PINTO                                  91                                         AN-ICON
              contributed to redefining the boundaries of contemporary
              art also because, in creating his works, he has had to try his
              hand as an art producer, director, event organiser, archivist
              as well as photographer, performer and installation creator,
              the latter roles being more standard within contemporary
              art.
                           The project commissioned by the WW1 Cente-
              nary Art Commission from Deller was related to celebrating
              the Battle of the Somme, one of the bloodiest battles in
              military history. Over 141 days, more than a million casu-
              alties were recorded. On the first day alone, the British
              Army suffered 57,470 casualties. Jeremy Deller’s idea was
              to create a mobile and temporary memorial7 that would
              dialogue with the present day and attempt to overturn the
              need to create a specific place dedicated to the memory
              of people and events by conceiving, instead, “a memorial
              that would come to you, that would appear in your city,
              town or shopping centre, intervening in your daily life. [...] It
              was as much about today as it was about 1916.”8 To meet
              this need, with the help of Rufus Norris – the theatre and
              film director who has been Artistic Director of the National
              Theatre since 2015 – he staged a massive performance in
              which more than 1,400 volunteers, dressed in the uniforms
              of World War I soldiers, with no public announcement of
              their presence, appeared in more than 40 cities9 on 1 July
              2016, making contact with UK citizens going about their
              daily business, and moving from one part of a city to an-
              other.
                           Deller had deliberately excluded the actors/
              participants from meeting in all those places that had,

      7 “I wanted to make a contemporary memorial to mark the centenary of the Battle of the
      Somme, one that moved around the UK with an unpredictability in which the participants, by
      their actions, took the memorial to the public.”
      Deller in https://becausewearehere.co.uk/we-are-here-about/, accessed December 15, 2022.
      8 J. Deller, R. Norris, We’re here because we’re here: 61.
      9 To access the map of the event see https://becausewearehere.co.uk/we-are-here-map/ ,
      accessed December 15, 2022.

ROBERTO PINTO                                 92                                        AN-ICON
               even remotely, a relation to celebrations and rituals – so
               no churches, public buildings, cemeteries, or locations of
               historical significance. In their place, train or metro stations,
               busy squares and streets, shopping malls or meeting plac-
               es.
                             Often in rather thickly crowded groups, these
               anachronistic soldiers had to present themselves in central
               areas and busy places to interact with citizens, returning
               their gaze and smiling at them, although they were not
               expected to engage in conversations or stimulate verbal
               exchanges. They had to limit themselves, occasionally and
               chorally, to singing a song to the tune of “Auld Lang Syne”
               with the words “We’re here because we’re here because
               we’re here,” hence the title of the work. British soldiers10
               also often used this line as a hymn wishing for the war’s end.
                            The idea of remaining silent was Norris’s sug-
               gestion,11 and, in a way, silence became a real communi-
               cative strategy for Deller to construct his sort of re-enact-
               ment:12 the silence before the event, which was completely
               concealed from the public until the day the performers
               appeared in the cities, and the substantial silence of the
               participants interrupted by the chants that occasionally
               accompanied the soldiers in their wanderings through the




      10 Deller explained: “When I read about this song, I realised I not only had an activity for the
      men but also a title for the piece. It explains nothing, it’s pointless and repetitive, a little like
      the fate of a foot soldier or even the nature of man’s addiction to conflict.” J. Deller, R. Norris,
      We’re here because we’re here: 61.
      11 C. Higgins, “#Wearehere: Somme tribute revealed as Jeremy Deller work,” The Guardian
      (July 1, 2016), https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/jul/01/wearehere-battle-somme-
      tribute-acted-out-across-britain, accessed December 15, 2022.
      12 Although, as we shall see, Deller has constructed genuine re-enactments, on this
      occasion this work cannot be properly considered as such, even though, often, this term is
      used as a hypernym. On this subject see S. Mudu, “Under the sign of Reenactment,” in C.
      Baldacci, S. Franco, eds., On Reenactment: Concepts, Metodologies, Tools (Turin: Accademia
      University Press, 2022).

ROBERTO PINTO                                     93                                             AN-ICON
               cities. During the weeks of training13 in the run-up to 1 July,
               Norris and Deller had explicitly requested of all participants
               that interaction with the spectators should stop there, at si-
               lence, at a simple exchange of glances, and that the possi-
               ble explanation/interpretation of the event unfolding before
               the mostly astonished eyes of the spectators should be left
               to the calling card – a choice dictated by both purely tech-
               nical and symbolic issues. The performative action – given
               the vastness of the intervention and the mass of people
               involved – had to remain as simple as possible so as not
               to force the performers to improvise in the face of the in-
               calculable variables imposed in an open dialogue with the
               casual passer-by. The conversation, therefore, would have
               been entirely uncontrollable and (also given that none of
               the participants had any professional acting training) the
               quality standards would probably have suffered.
                            In addition, although I am not aware that this
               was made explicit, it would also have posed a problem of
               a symbolic nature: each participant in the performance was
               the apparition or “ghost” of a dead person, and therefore,
               silence was the most suitable form to evoke the victims. The
               actual interaction with the audience, then, took place only
               through a common calling card which established a dia-
               logue of glances in the explanation of the work – I represent
               someone, a specific person with a name, regiment, or rank,
               who died a hundred years ago, even if I am not him – and
               which at the same time also became the tombstone, the




      13 An interesting insight into the training period for the performers in this project can be
      found in a conversation between Deller and Emily Lim. Cfr. E. Lim, J. Deller, “Relaxed, open,
      alive, kind, engaged,” in R. Norris, J. Deller, We’re Here Because We’re Here: 104-113. Here,
      we also find a document with the “Five Golden Words: Relaxed, open, alive, kind, engaged”
      and the “Four Golden Rules: 1. Stay Alive – Keep it natural, be comfortable, don’t ever be a
      statue! 2. Seek Eye Contact – be interested in the public but don’t intimidate them, it’s not a
      staring competition! 3. Be Kind to the public, don’t ever be rude! 4. Each Card is a Gift – make
      eye contact when you give it, watch the public’s reaction to it.” Ibid.: 104.

ROBERTO PINTO                                   94                                           AN-ICON
               remnant of the monument.14 In a video filmed by the BBC
               on this project, Deller said that he owed the idea of making
               the soldiers who died in that battle appear as ghosts to
               something he had read during the research period before
               the work, in which he had found interesting information

about phenomena in Britain during the war - of women mainly -
seeing dead loved ones in the street, just catching a glimpse of
someone on a bus or through a shop window thinking it was their
husband or their brother or their son. It became quite a big thing, all
these sightings, these apparitions of the dead. So it was as if the
project had already happened during the war. People had already
seen the dead in the streets.15
                             Compared to a monument or a more traditional
               re-enactment of a historical event, which asks us to respect
               the hero’s sacrifice and celebrate it, Deller shifts the focus
               to the individual persons, or rather, to the void they left
               behind, filling it through the concretisation of the ghost of
               the missing person, thus giving shape to the void created
               around each of the people who disappeared in the war.
               This shift also reflects the artist’s desire to avoid any senti-
               mentality in the representation: “Avoid Sentimentality” was
               the instruction written on one of his reproduced sheets of
               notes. The artist explicitly speaks of the goal of giving the
               audience a “jolt,”16 and a jolt, after all, is at the opposite
               extreme of storytelling and words of condolence with which




       14 “We also equipped each man with a set of ‘calling cards’ which bore the name, regiment
       and rank of a soldier who died on 1 July. He was representing that person, not pretending to
       be him. The card was effectively a gravestone, and if a member of the public paid attention to
       a soldier in any way he or she was given one,” J. Deller, R. Norris, We’re here because we’re
       here: 61.
       15 W. Yu (@weiyu970), “Jeremy Deller – We’re Here Because We’re Here,” YouTube video
       (November 26, 2016), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXnr3w74TJs&t=158s, accessed
       December 15, 2022.
       16 J. Deller in J. Deller, R. Norris, We’re here because we’re here: 61.

ROBERTO PINTO                                   95                                          AN-ICON
               to remember the many qualities of those who have left us –
               usual procedures in a commemoration of historical events.
                             Nevertheless, the heart of this work is absolutely
               emotional; in fact, the people who found themselves pass-
               ing through the cities engaged with the performance were
               sucked into the event, not only because they felt surrounded
               by it but, above all, because the absence of rhetoric made
               them feel exempt from any pressing request to take sides,
               to accept being part of a community, as any ritual (even a
               secular one) imposes. The request was only to participate.
               And perhaps it is precisely in this form of engagement that
               the diversity lies, compared to others, of Deller’s fascinating
               offering. It appropriates with this immense “delegated per-
               formance”17 the principles of spectacularity; it is the child
               of cinema and a digital and social media culture,18 but, at
               the same time, does not create artificial distances between
               spectator and performer, given that the extreme proximity
               of the encounter with the soldiers made the experience
               somehow simultaneously unique and intimate.
                             However, this was not the first time that Deller
               had used these modes of immersive engagement to rec-
               reate the feeling at least of an episode from the past and
               bring back to life a part of history that we have forgotten or
               repressed. This had already happened with It Is What It Is:
               Conversation about Iraq, from 2009, a collaborative work
               with Creative Time and the New Museum in New York, in
               which he had taken a car destroyed by explosives found in
               Iraq on a tour of 14 US museums to serve as a “backdrop”




      17 I refer to the category used by Claire Bishop in C. Bishop, Artificial Hells: Participatory Art
      and the Politics of Spectatorship (London: Verso, 2012).
      18 See C. Eva, “Reaching the Public” in J. Deller, R. Norris, We’re here because we’re here:
      115-116, which begins with the statement: “In many ways We’re here because we’re here is an
      artwork for the age of social media.”

ROBERTO PINTO                                    96                                           AN-ICON
               to a conversation space in which Iraqi citizens and Ameri-
               can military personnel, among others, were invited.19
                            Nevertheless, the work that, in terms of organ-
               isational strategy and spectator involvement, serves as the
               premise for We’re here because we’re here is undoubtedly
               The Battle of Orgreave, from 2001, in which Deller attempted
               to recreate live – again, as a gigantic participatory perfor-
               mance – the clashes between police and striking miners at
               the Orgreave Coking Plant in Yorkshire on 18 June 1984.
               This episode, one of the harshest and most divisive for Brit-
               ain in the 1980s and the Thatcher era, had affected Deller
               as a teenager at the time:

I wanted to find out what exactly happened on that day with a view
to re-enacting or commemorating it in some way. It would not be
an exaggeration to say that the strike, lik e a civil war, had a trau-
matically divisive effect at all levels of life in the UK. Families were
torn apart because of divided loyalties, the union movement was
split on its willingness to support the National Union of Mineworkers,
the print media especially contributed to the polarisation of the
arguments to the point where there appeared to be little space for
a middle ground. So in all but name it became an ideological and
industrial battle between the two sections of British society.20
                            Commissioned and produced by Artangel, The
                Battle of Orgreave was a reconstruction involving about


       19 On his website Deller explains: “This project started as the idea to create a mobile
       museum of the war in Iraq that would tour the US. Finding material for the museum proved
       difficult, until we were offered a car that had been used in previous exhibitions. From this car,
       used as a centrepiece, we constructed a room in the museum where the public could meet
       and talk to people involved in the conflict in some way. The idea was then taken on the road;
       we towed the car from New York to LA, stopping off in 14 towns and cities on the way – a
       classic American road trip route – accompanied by an Iraqi citizen and an enlisted American
       soldier. It was presented in as neutral a way as possible, which puzzled a lot of people. But
       it meant that the public were more likely to talk to us, because they weren’t scared of being
       dragged into some sort of political arena. Sometimes these conversations went on for hours.
       The car was subsequently donated to the Imperial War Museum in London”
       https://www.jeremydeller.org/ItIsWhatItIs/ItIsWhatItIs.php accessed December 15, 2022.
       20 J. Deller, The English Civil War / Part II (London: Artangel, 2002): 7.

ROBERTO PINTO                                     97                                            AN-ICON
              a thousand people21 – around 800 who had taken part in
              historical re-enactments, approximately 200 former miners
              and an unknown number of people who were part of the
              police force at the time. It was also, in parallel, a massive
              piece of research with information, photos and videos in
              addition to, as already described in We’re here because
              we’re here, a long collective preparation work in which
              the former miners, above all, also had the role of helping
              in the reconstruction of events. And as with The Battle of
              Orgreave, one cannot fail to be struck by the enormous
              organisational effort that displays all of Deller’s ability to
              rely on a network of knowledge and professional expertise,
              even with associations involved in battle re-enactments
              and costumed historical events.22
                            Here, too, we find the artist’s interest in the pro-
              cesses of collective memory and its loss, but The Battle of
              Orgreave was also an attempt to reconstruct the very idea
              of society that Thatcher had denied – one of her slogans
              was “There is no such thing as Society” – precisely through
              the concept of delegation and collaboration with others
              to achieve a common interest. As far as possible, Deller
              relied on the memories of the miners and police officers
              to recreate the battle scene, putting the many newspaper
              articles in the background; in essence, allowing the many
              personal memories to direct the course of the re-enactment.
                            It is a reconstruction process not to be consid-
              ered definitively concluded since Deller presents it again
              in the form of a film (shot by Mike Figgs), an archive (in the

      21 Ibid.; See also A. Correia, “Interpreting Jeremy Deller’s The Battle of Orgreave,” Visual
      Culture in Britain, no.7 (2006): 93-112.
      22 On this subject, numerous articles and volumes have come out on both the artistic and
      the more purely theatrical side. In addition to the texts already mentioned, I would add: R.
      Schneider, Performing Remains: Art and War in Times of Theatrical Reenactment (Routledge:
      London, 2011); M. Franko, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Reenactment (New
      York: Oxford University Press, 2017); V. Agnew., J. Lamb, J. Tomann, eds., The Routledge
      Handbook of Reenactment Studies (New York: Routledge, 2020); C. Baldacci, C. Nicastro, A.
      Sforzini, eds., Over and Over and Over Again: Reenactment Strategies in Contemporary Arts
      and Theory (Berlin: ICI Berlin Press, 2022); C. Baldacci, S. Franco, eds., On Reenactment:
      Concepts, Methodologies, Tools (Accademia University Press: Turin, 2022).

ROBERTO PINTO                                  98                                         AN-ICON
              Tate Modern collection), and a catalogue (The English Civil
              War / Part II), and it nevertheless remains present in the
              minds of the many participants and spectators (a distinc-
              tion whose legitimacy is to be verified) who took part in the
              reconstruction of the events on 17 June 2001.
                          As Amelia Jones explains well,

 crucially, The Battle of Orgreave itself is continually changing— and
 is never presented as a “final” or fully coherent work or object,
 even though it consists of documents, objects, and other mate-
 rial traces of prior re-enactments. Notably, too, while many of the
 other re-enactments tellingly substitute the re-enactor as new
“author” of a unique and ultimately static (documented) work, Deller
 himself does not feature in a noticeable way either as part of the
 re-enactment or the public relations materials circulating around
 the film, its most visible “documentation”—the work in its infinite
 permutations does not tend to devolve back to a singular body,
 though it does only have coherence in relation to the author-name
 Jeremy Deller.23
                             Deller is fascinated by history, but instead of
               seeking its element of order, repetition, and the possibil-
               ity of foreseeing things, he strives to make room for the
               complexity that is necessarily chaos and confusion. As art
               critic Teresa Macrì points out in her Politics/poetics,24 it is
               disorder that fascinates the artist, and often this confusion
               is identified with mass movements, collective participation,
               and the public dimension of his work.
                             From a historical point of view, these projects
               can be juxtaposed with Jochen Gerz’s Counter-Monument,25
               but I believe that Deller’s works are more a continuation


       23 A. Jones, “‘The Artist is Present.’ Artistic Re-enactments and the Impossibility of
       Presence,” TDR. The Drama Review 55, no. 1 (2021): 16-45, 24.
       24 T. Macrì, Politics/Poetics (Milano: Postmedia, 2014).
       25 J.E. Young, “The Counter-Monument: Memory against Itself in Germany Today,” Critical
       Inquiry 18, no. 2 (1992): 267-296.

ROBERTO PINTO                                 99                                       AN-ICON
              of the actions of political art collectives in the 1970s and
              1980s, and I am thinking above all of Group Material – which
              disbanded in 199626 – or the previously mentioned art ac-
              tivist Suzanne Lacy. As in their work, in the operations of
              the British artist there is no truth to be sought with an
              ideological attitude, rather the aim is to try to share ideas
              and above all to try to listen to the many dissonant voices
              and counter-narratives that have not been given sufficient
              space in the dominant discourse. At the same time, he
              perhaps distances himself from them precisely because of
              the popular/spectacular dimension that his works take on,
              because of the attention he dedicates to the spectator – a
              role that is always possible and never wholly absent in his
              works, which goes hand in hand with that of participant/
              performer.




      26 “It’s hard not to feel that Group Material broke significant ground but missed the party.
      The year they broke up, 1996, coincides with a proliferation of new forms of social practice
      lately successful in museum exhibitions and biennials, whether in the work of Francis Alÿs or
      Jeremy Deller.” A. Green, “Citizen Artists: Group Material,” Afterall: A Journal of Art, Context
      and Enquiry, no. 26 (2011): 17-25.
ROBERTO PINTO                                   100                                           AN-ICON
AN-ICON has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. Grant agreement No. 834033 AN-ICON.
The project is hosted by the Department of Philosophy “Piero Martinetti” – Department of Excellence at the State University of Milan.



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