Members of the public in central London last Saturday will have done a double take as an inflatable naked figure floated down Whitehall with a banner reading “The Triumph of Art” held proudly in front of it. The cheery, Beryl Cook-inspired balloon character was leading a parade organised by the British artist Jeremy Deller, which culminated in a bacchanalian street party in Trafalgar Square.
The arty bonanza, marking the finale of Deller’s nationwide performance also titled The Triumph of Art, was an eclectic mishmash of high-energy performance, collaborative art making and the communal consumption of free tea and biscuits in an open-air cafe. Deller had previously said of the event: “I’m interested in pushing the envelope of what is acceptable to be called art, who makes it, and what are its limits—if there are any. What exists on the fringes is always interesting to me.”
Performers engaged in the weight-lifting activities. Members of the public were seen getting involved too
Photo: David Owen
One of the first things The Art Newspaper stumbled upon in the square was what resembled a Stone Age gymnasium, featuring performers lifting boulders above their heads. Beside them were members of the public applying paint-covered stamps to second hand clothes—part of a project by the artist duo kennardphillips (Peter Kennard and Cat Phillips) aimed at highlighting the perils of consumerism.
“We selected some paintings from the National Gallery’s collection, made interventions in those paintings and turned them into linocuts,” says Phillips, adding that a multi-faceted sense of activism carried throughout. “Most people stop making things themselves after primary school—they’re not given space to do it anymore and people get scared to even bang a nail in the wrong wall,” she says. “So this is also about empowerment.”
Cat Phillipps (in the orange high-vis jacket) leads kennardphillipps’ workshop, which invited the public to decorate second-hand clothes
Photo: The Art Newspaper
Other highlights included a tent dedicated to William Morris—a Deller fave—and another space enticingly called “Adam and Eve”, which, it turned out, featured two naked performers dressed as the Biblical pair, their modesty protected by the traditional foliage.
From left: the artists Andy Holden, Jeremy Deller (the organiser of The Triumph of Art) and Mark Wallinger with The Art Newspaper’s Louisa Buck
Photo: David Owens
The Art Newspaper’s contemporary art correspondent Louisa Buck took part in the parade earlier in the day, and recalled the confusion sparked by the nudey pair. “As Adam and Eve were having their foliage adjusted over their genitals, someone said: I think it’s a Greenpeace parade.”
