Jeremy Deller: Manchester Tracks

Cultural traces from the city of Manchester, England, are viewed through the lens of contemporary British artist Jeremy Deller.

Manchester Tracks highlights the Museum’s 2011 acquisition of Deller’s Shaun Ryder’s Family Tree (2008), along with a selection of materials drawn from the artist’s projects in and about the northwestern English city. Deller’s work investigates cultural forms and historical processes, focusing on the creative ways in which social histories are made, shared, altered, and remembered. Acting as a producer, orchestrator, curator, or director of a range of projects—including films, processions, historical reenactments, demonstrations, exhibitions, and publications—the social aspects of a project or place often become a central medium of his work. 

Deller won the Turner Prize in 2004—an honor given each year to one British artist younger than 50, recognizing an outstanding exhibition or other presentation of their work. He is the subject of an upcoming retrospective at London’s Hayward Gallery in 2012.