Why art world star Jeremy Deller chose Dundee over Scotland's capital for myth-inspired project

The Courier

22-05-2025

Even if you've never set foot in an art gallery, you might have walked right by Jeremy Deller's work.
In 2004 he won the Turner Prize for recreating the 1980s miners' strike's Battle of Orgreave as an enthusiast's military re-enactment.
More recently his bouncy, interactive model of Stonehenge premiered in Glasgow in 2012 and toured the country during that year's London Olympics.
Or you might know him from his films, including Our Hobby is Depeche Mode – about hardcore fans of the '80s group – and Everybody in the Place, a masterful study of the crossover between rave music and politics in the '80s and '90s.
Most importantly for Dundonian art lovers, he designed the billboards outside the East Marketgait underpass.
And this weekend Deller is coming to Dundee with a new, large-scale interactive project which is taking over City Square.
Created with students from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, Meet the Gods is part of The Triumph of Art, a multi-city project which Deller has created to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the National Gallery in London.
'It's the National Gallery, so it has to be a national project,' says Deller. 'It has to happen outside of London, not just within it.'
Meet the Gods will be the second of four monthly events held in Derry-Londonderry, Dundee, Llandudno and Plymouth, before they all come together for the concluding celebration in London on July 26.
'In the National Gallery you have all these paintings with different stories and characters and imagery,' continues Deller.
'These events take examples from these ancient stories and create a party around them, it's simple really.
'In Dundee the paintings will come to life through the contemporary equivalents of some mythological characters who are in a party mood.'
Meet the Gods was Deller's suggested theme, and he's worked with Dundee's students to build a scenario in which the god of wine and celebration, Bacchus, has thrown a party for his fellow gods.
'It's a Bacchic tea party, and other gods are going to be there,' says Deller.
'Medusa will be there, we have a Narcissus bothy, then we have elements to do with stone circles, which are probably as ancient as these gods.
'There's a spiritual element, that's really important. We have life drawing with the gods, Eros (AKA Cupid) might be around, maybe even Venus (goddess of love).
'Some of the students have taken on the characters of these gods.'
There will also be DIY merch-making from artists Peter Kennard and Cat Phillipps, aka KennardPhillipps, a performance by art school band Fallope and the Tubes, folk music and a ceilidh.
'It's all about enjoyment,' says Deller. 'Art has many roles, and one of them is bringing people together to celebrate cultures and places. That's what will happen here.'
'I didn't want to go to the obvious places,' he continues.
'I wanted to go to cities which maybe don't get the attention others do, but ones where people have enthusiasm and there's a culture that I can work with, an organisation that's rooted there.
'Also, I wanted to be in cities where I felt I could get to grips with them without having to travel huge distances across them, walkable places where I can see everything around me.
'Dundee is a really great size of city to work with, I get a lot done and everybody knows each other, which is really helpful.'
It certainly isn't an unfamiliar city to Deller.
'I've been to Dundee a number of times,' he says. 'I was in a show at the DCA some years ago, in 2003 I think. It had only just opened, or it felt like it.
'I like the city a lot, and the surrounding area.
'Arbroath is a very interesting place. I know the coastline because I come up on the train a lot, and I've always had a good time here.'
Has he seen Dundee change much in that time?
'The buildings have changed,' he says. 'I don't think the people have. It's changed physically, but it's still the place I remember from then.'
Deller is an unusual case among contemporary artists, in that he actively seeks out people to put his art in front of who may not give it a second thought.
More often than not, it produces a reaction.
'I love making work in the public realm,' he says. 'It's nerve-wracking, because you have the weather to deal with. And the public can behave in ways you're not expecting, but that brings up interesting moments.
'I just want people to have an interesting experience and to take away new memories. And of course there'll be plenty of moments where people can take pictures of themselves doing things with gods.
'It's about changing the nature of the everyday, even for just a split second, and making the world seem different,' he continues.
'People think contemporary art is difficult to understand and a bit pretentious, but it really isn't. It's just people trying to communicate an idea or a feeling, and that's what we're trying to do here.
'It's about people coming together, enjoying themselves in a common space and being proud and happy of where they live.
'That's important to me, and when it's in the open air it's much more random than a gallery.
'However much publicity you do there are going to be loads of people who don't know this is happening. So they'll just come across it and hopefully it'll change their afternoon.'