The year was 1999. The residents of south London were coming to terms with the bombing of a busy supermarket in Brixton. It was at this time that artist Jeremy Deller was visiting the annual Lambeth Country Show and he came across a striking handsewn banner commemorating the bombing and the anti-racism march in the city. Created by Ed Hall, this banner is now one of the 280-plus elements that form part of Folk Archive. Put together by Deller and Alan Kane, the archive features an assortment of photographs, drawings, paintings, performances, film and objects - some humorous, some ironic, but all offering an insight into the loves, joys, traditions and ways of living of people from the British countryside. The exhibition, on a three-city tour, was first shown in Mumbai and Kolkata and is now attracting crowds at New Delhi's Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts.
However, both Deller and Kane maintain that this is not an archive in the conventional sense. "We have been cheeky in using the term 'folk' for things that are not usually looked at as folk by the urban milieu," says Kane. "And 'archive' is traditionally a museological term. As artists, we tend to catalogue everything. That's the privilege of being an artist, that you can take liberties with language," says Kane.
The duo have extended their role as artists by giving and ascribing meaning and context to objects created by someone else and accidentally "found" by Kane and Deller. There are works like the Vegetable Animal, the Burry Man, The Painted Clown Eggs that were created, respectively, by artists G H Ghent, Jill Pidd and Katherine Stone for public viewing with a unique vision. However, Kane and Deller broadened the context originally conceived of by these artists to show the evolving social landscape of the "working class" culture and the quirkiness of British humour.
Novelist and cultural commentator Michael Bracewell explains this in his introduction to Folk Archive: "Deller and Kane have stated that they 'are treading a line between artists and being anthropologists' - as arguably Folk Archive adapts anthropology as an art-making process…," he writes. "The descriptive titles of the items in the Archive give evidence of this: 'Skull Crash Helmet', 'Fake Parking Tickets', 'The Burry Man Genitals', 'Penny Hedge'. Such titles seem drawn from a line of peculiarly British follies and eccentricities that might stretch back through historical myth and folklore while finding modern incarnation in the British pop surrealism."
The Lambeth Country Show has played a significant role in inspiring the quirks of the project. "The show is not actually in the country. It's sort of like saying Delhi Rural Fair," explains Deller. "A lot of people who live there have actually never been to the countryside. Britain lost its connection with such areas during the industrial revolution. The fair offers an interesting combination of the urban and the countryside." He cites an example of some of the quaint objects they came across at the fair. "Tableaux made of fruits and veggies became quite a rage and were shared by nearly everyone on the Internet. There was such a sense of competition with people going all out to create history images through fruits and veggies," he laughs.
The Archive also offers an interesting contrast in the country life in different countries. "For instance, The Man on a Horse is about big demonstrations, about the rights of people from the countryside. These people were quite wealthy and their conservation and other issues were different from those of, say, people in the Indian countryside. They were trying to protect their privileges rather than raising a voice for a social cause," says Kane. Yet another unique image is of tattoo guns made by prisoners. "If discovered by the prison authorities, the guns would result in extra sentence for the prisoner for spreading diseases. Yet, if you look closely, they are clever pieces of engineering," says Deller.
These exhibits take on a different meaning when taken out of their contextual setting and placed in a neutral space such as an art gallery. The duo maintain that they intentionally made this a project for the galleries. "We have taken material from the street and put it in the palaces of high art," says Kane. "We have added a larger public to the audience that might have originally viewed these objects. Maybe, politically these exhibits are more valuable. This sort of material is very inspiring for artists."
However, both Deller and Kane maintain that this is not an archive in the conventional sense. "We have been cheeky in using the term 'folk' for things that are not usually looked at as folk by the urban milieu," says Kane. "And 'archive' is traditionally a museological term. As artists, we tend to catalogue everything. That's the privilege of being an artist, that you can take liberties with language," says Kane.
The duo have extended their role as artists by giving and ascribing meaning and context to objects created by someone else and accidentally "found" by Kane and Deller. There are works like the Vegetable Animal, the Burry Man, The Painted Clown Eggs that were created, respectively, by artists G H Ghent, Jill Pidd and Katherine Stone for public viewing with a unique vision. However, Kane and Deller broadened the context originally conceived of by these artists to show the evolving social landscape of the "working class" culture and the quirkiness of British humour.
Novelist and cultural commentator Michael Bracewell explains this in his introduction to Folk Archive: "Deller and Kane have stated that they 'are treading a line between artists and being anthropologists' - as arguably Folk Archive adapts anthropology as an art-making process…," he writes. "The descriptive titles of the items in the Archive give evidence of this: 'Skull Crash Helmet', 'Fake Parking Tickets', 'The Burry Man Genitals', 'Penny Hedge'. Such titles seem drawn from a line of peculiarly British follies and eccentricities that might stretch back through historical myth and folklore while finding modern incarnation in the British pop surrealism."
The Lambeth Country Show has played a significant role in inspiring the quirks of the project. "The show is not actually in the country. It's sort of like saying Delhi Rural Fair," explains Deller. "A lot of people who live there have actually never been to the countryside. Britain lost its connection with such areas during the industrial revolution. The fair offers an interesting combination of the urban and the countryside." He cites an example of some of the quaint objects they came across at the fair. "Tableaux made of fruits and veggies became quite a rage and were shared by nearly everyone on the Internet. There was such a sense of competition with people going all out to create history images through fruits and veggies," he laughs.
The Archive also offers an interesting contrast in the country life in different countries. "For instance, The Man on a Horse is about big demonstrations, about the rights of people from the countryside. These people were quite wealthy and their conservation and other issues were different from those of, say, people in the Indian countryside. They were trying to protect their privileges rather than raising a voice for a social cause," says Kane. Yet another unique image is of tattoo guns made by prisoners. "If discovered by the prison authorities, the guns would result in extra sentence for the prisoner for spreading diseases. Yet, if you look closely, they are clever pieces of engineering," says Deller.
These exhibits take on a different meaning when taken out of their contextual setting and placed in a neutral space such as an art gallery. The duo maintain that they intentionally made this a project for the galleries. "We have taken material from the street and put it in the palaces of high art," says Kane. "We have added a larger public to the audience that might have originally viewed these objects. Maybe, politically these exhibits are more valuable. This sort of material is very inspiring for artists."
Folk Archive will be on show at Mati Ghar, IGNCA, New Delhi, till February 27