Jeremy Deller selected for the pavilion at the Venice Biennale, 2013
Date uploaded: May 21, 2012
Jeremy Deller has been selected to fill the British pavilion at the 2013 Venice Biennale
Jeremy Deller, who won Turner prize in 2004, has promised "to do my best" having been selected for the British pavilion at next year's Venice Biennale.
"I really don't know what I'm going to do ... I was a bit daunted at first, but now I'm looking forward to it, I think. I haven't even seen the pavilion empty, so that's probably the first thing to do."
Deller's retrospective, Joy in the People, which has been on show at London's Hayward Gallery, has just closed, and his piece for the Cultural Olympiad - a lifesize bouncy castle of Stonehenge - is currently on tour.
Tate Modern's Director, Chris Dercon, who sits on the Biennale selection panel, described Deller as: "an exciting and daring choice ... He is a master of an art which is very different from most contemporary art production. His observations and actions, invoking and depicting the harsh morals of contemporary life, are incredibly precise yet full of comical relief. Deller's art is representing British culture at its best: it is an art of the real – poignant and often confrontational – yet full of compassion and never dull."
The 55th Venice Biennale will run from June to November 2013. Artists who have previously taken on the responsibility for decorating the British pavilion include: Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, Bridget Riley, Anthony Caro and Gilbert and George. Mike Nelson was the last artist to be appointed - in 2011.
