Jeremy Deller: Art and industry
- Published
Artist Jeremy Deller is taking a fresh look at the industrial revolution at Manchester Art Gallery. Deller, who won the Turner Prize in 1994 and represented Britain at the Venice Biennale this May, has curated paintings, photos and objects linking the age of industry with modern life. It includes a jukebox that plays the sounds of mill hooters, looms, engines and singing quarrymen. The exhibition, titled All That Is Solid Melts Into Air, opens on Saturday as part of the Manchester Weekender.
A photo by Dennis Hutchinson of flamboyant professional wrestler Adrian Street visiting his miner father down a pit in Wales in 1973 is the most important picture in the exhibition, Deller says. Street was determined not to follow his father's career. "In this image you have the history of post-war Britain, of a country going from an industrial culture to a service and entertainment culture," Deller says. "In one generation, you have this massive shift from darkness to light." © Dennis Hutchinson
Industrialist Francis Crawshay commissioned WJ Chapman to paint portraits of 16 workers at his iron works and tin works in the 1830s. "There are very few depictions of working people in Britain considering how many people were working," Deller says. Even more unusually, the names and job titles of these workers were recorded. These portraits show roller William James (left) and cinder filler David Davies. Courtesy National Museum Wales, Cardiff.
Photographs of anonymous female workers at an iron works in Tredegar, Wales, were taken in the 1860s in response to a debate around the role of women in industry. "She’s breaking rocks," Deller says of the woman on the left. "Very tough work. These are very early photographs of workers. I’d never seen anything like these before. I think we are lucky. By our standards they had appalling lives and those photographs are very powerful." Courtesy Manchester Art Gallery.
This 1869 engraving by G Greatbach is titled The Black Country. "It’s hellish. The ground is on fire," Deller says. In the exhibition, this picture is next to an LP cover by Birmingham heavy metal band Judas Priest. "I see rock music as almost a requiem for those times," the artist says. "It’s manly music, made very loud, almost like the industrial process itself. And yet it’s celebrating something that was dying, in Britain at least. There’s a great connection." © Science Museum/SSPL.
The "epic industrial landscapes" by photographer John Davies in the 1980s include this one of Stockport Viaduct, which was built in 1840. "I love these images because they show an accumulation of history," Deller says. "This shows change, but things being more or less the same. We’re still using these objects. The industrial revolution’s still shaping us and is part of our everyday lives. It’s something that’s still around us, especially when you’re in this town." © John Davies.
JW Lowry's depiction of Thomas Robinson's power loom factory in Stockport in 1849-1850 is an idealised image of a mill, Deller says. "It’s a beautiful engraving, but the women all look like Greek goddesses. They’re dressed with their hair up and with these dresses... Of course we know the reality would have been somewhat different." Deller compares it to a 2013 photo he has selected of an Amazon warehouse with shelves stretching into the distance. © Science Museum/SSPL.
"To me this is like the Welsh Grand Canyon has been produced by these slate miners," he says of this image of Penrhyn Slate Quarries, near Bangor, Wales, in 1842. "There was an element to the industrial revolution of great beauty and of change and people being quite impressed by it." © Science Museum/SSPL
"I just think it’s funny that someone saw fit to draw this, and I’m glad they did," Deller says. The drawing is titled Effects of Alston Brewery and was made in the early 1800s. "It shows that the world hasn’t changed that much, has it? That’s a Friday night anywhere in Britain." The exhibition runs in Manchester until January, after which it will go on tour to Nottingham, Coventry and Newcastle. © Science Museum/SSPL.
- Published10 October 2013
- Published10 October 2013