JD: Not officially, no. But just having that piece of evidence there from that war might have sent people a bit crazy, people who perhaps had post-traumatic stress disorder, whose husband has been killed or whose brother lost his leg or… You just don’t know what that would trigger with people. In some people it did trigger memories. There was an Iraqi doctor we met, who was a student and he said, “when I look at that I can smell burning bodies,” and it was awful. You know, he spoke to us and there were other people who said similar things, soldiers, former soldiers. Again it is about the power of the object and what it can do. RR: We also had this car in the exhibition in your retrospective exhibition in the Hayward Gallery three years ago2 now, and we have all seen images of blownup cars on television and in the newspaper, but seeing the actual physical object is a very different experience. You seem to be someone who actually has faith in that capacity, that we still have this capacity to respond differently to physical things. JD: Yes, but, I mean, it is a big object, when there is an explosion, the air pressure changes, so the car was crushed. Large objects interest us. Again, it goes back to the idea of curiosity. In Britain you are more or less insulated from the war. You rarely see anything or even meet a soldier if you live in London and move in certain circles. RR: Also I think, for me, just to see how much that steel had been transformed and misshapen by the power of that blast. It gives you a real sense of the violence that you don’t get from looking at the image. JD: In the UK, maybe it is the same in Finland, you are not allowed to show dead bodies on TV, you can’t do that. In very rare circumstances, there are very strict guidelines on taste, about showing dead bodies. So, often, they show a car that has been blown up, so the body and the car become interchangeable in terms of the iconography. RR: Now, I have a few questions, just to move on to the 24-hour rock-movie marathon. JD: I thought I would share a little clip, or do you want to have… RR: No, let’s have a clip. JD: I want to show a clip which was in a way the inspiration for the 24 Hour Rockshow. It is a film we showed here, but maybe Ralph and I will talk a little about the clip. It convinced me that it was a worthwhile thing to do, when I watched this film. RR: I must have seen this film a long time ago. JD: I have seen it a number of times, but I watched it again and realized, as an older person, that it is actually like a horror film. 2
Jeremy Deller’s first retrospective Joy in People (2012) was exhibited at Hayward Gallery, London and was curated by Ralph Rugoff.
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