Jeremy Deller at Turner Contemporary Gallery.

It was the opening of the new Jeremy Deller exhibition at the Turner Contemporary Gallery on Saturday. link to gallery site here  Part of the exhibition called English Magic, has been on tour since it was first seen at the Venice Biennale in 2013.

The British Council  has an article about Jeremy Deller and the British Pavillion in Venice here.

On the opening day, the Melodians Steel Orchestra were playing and the gallery was packed. The orchestra played music from Jeremy Deller's film and other works and were joined by The Big Sing, Turner Gallery's  resident choir. They also performed a piece arranged by Emily Peasgood part of the SoundsLikeArt project.

I really like the sound of the steel drums, which seem to have a particular energy that is uplifting.

I made my way upstairs during their performance to stand and look down at part of the orchestra from above.

The main galleries had the English Magic exhibition and some small Turner paintings chosen by Jeremy Deller.  I only had a brief walk round and will go back several more times before the exhibition ends.

The large wall art pieces are dramatic, the figure of William Morris overturning a luxury yacht in the Venice lagoon, and the Hen Harrier holding a crushed Range Rover in it's claws.

Other exhibits include Neolithic hand axes, photos from the Ziggy Stardust Tour of 1972  and text based banner type works.

Talks and photos of the Thames

There was a talk at the Southbank with Jeremy Deller and Lu Jie called Unofficial Art, that I went to earlier in the month. It was a shame that not many people were there, as it was a very thought provoking evening. Jeremy Deller was talking about his Acid Brass project, where a traditional brass band played acid rock music. It seemed to be a way of linking cultures, and breaking the stereotypes around brass bands and creating a new audience. Deller talked about re-connecting people and giving them a lineage. He showed an extract from a video he made of the band playing and it really was good.
Other work he talked about included his documentation of alternative culture in Britain, including traditional festivals such as the tar barrel rolling in Devon. Then there was the film about Depeche Mode fans particularly in Eastern Europe. Questions for Deller were about what is seen as art, what is valued in our society and who has access to exhibiting space?
Art in general he thought lost much by not acknowledging it's connection to the wider cultural forms.

Lu Jie, quipped Am I back in Bejing? when he saw the title Unofficial Art, which made me laugh.
He is involved with a vast array of projects in China some under the heading The Long March, artists travel across China working with people involved in creative practise. I was really pleased to hear about one project, The great Survey of Paper cutting, which looked at the paper cutting tradition in one province, where some of the outcomes have been a higher status for the people involved in paper cutting, usually women, and international exhibitions of their work, more money coming into the region and the re-evaluation of the tradition.

After the talks I was walking across the bridge with Ruth to Embankment station. The lights around the river were making really amazing reflections on the water, the area was filled with people, which was giving a party like atmosphere and a good end to the evening.