now until – 26th November 2016

2016 Jeremy Deller: The Battle of Orgreave

@ Worcester City Art Gallery & Museum. an elegant Victorian building in the heart of Worcester.

 

Introduction

This exhibition brings an important and challenging artwork to Worcester, by one of the most significant artists of this generation. Jeremy Deller compares the Miner’s Strike to the English Civil War: “It would not be an exaggeration to say that the strike, like a civil war, had a traumatically divisive effect at all levels of life in the UK. Families were torn apart because of divided loyalties, the union movement was split on its willingness to support the National Union of Mineworkers… in all but name it became an ideological and industrial battle between the two sections of British society.” On 18 June 1984, the area around the Orgreave coking plant was the site of one of the strike’s most violent clashes. Jeremy Deller’s artwork The Battle of Orgreave, was a spectacular recreation of that day, orchestrated for Deller by a historical re-enactment expert. More than 800 people participated in the event, including former miners and former policemen, reliving the events from 1984. Other participants were drawn from Civil War societies who were more used to re-enacting fights like the 1651 Battle of Worcester. On loan from The Artangel Collection at Tate, the exhibition includes a documentary film directed by Mike Figgis, alongside objects, images and audio recordings from the artist’s archive of research materials for the reenactment of the battle.