Deller traces his broad interests in art and culture, in part, to childhood visits to museums like the
Horniman Museum, in
South London. After meeting
Andy Warhol in 1986, Deller spent two weeks at
The Factory in New York. He began making artworks in the early 1990s, often showing them outside of conventional galleries. In 1993, while his parents were on holiday (he was 27, still living at home), he secretly used the family home for an exhibition titled Open Bedroom. In 1997, Deller embarked on
Acid Brass, a musical collaboration with the Williams Fairey Brass Band from
Stockport. The project was based on fusing the music of a traditional
brass band with
acid house and
Detroit techno. Much of Deller's work is collaborative. His work has a strong political aspect, in the subjects dealt with and also the devaluation of artistic ego through the involvement of other people in the creative process.
Folk Archive is a tour of "people's art" and has been exhibited throughout the UK including at
Barbican Centre and most recently (2013) at
The Public, West Bromwich, outside of the contemporary art institution. Much of his work is ephemeral in nature and avoids commodification. Deller staged
The Battle of Orgreave in 2001, bringing together almost 1,000 people in a public re-enactment of
a violent confrontation from the
1984 Miners' Strike. The re-enactment was filmed by director
Mike Figgis for
Artangel Media and Channel 4.
The Battle of Orgreave was ranked second in
The Guardian's Best Art of the 21st Century list, with critic
Hettie Judah calling it a "monument of sorts, the performance was at once participatory ritual, spectacle, living archive and a space to mourn". In 2004, for the opening of
Manifesta 5, the roving European Biennial of Contemporary art, Deller organised a
Social Parade through the streets of the city of
Donostia-San Sebastian, drafting in cadres of local alternative societies and support groups to participate. 2012. 2012. In 2005/6, he was involved in a touring exhibit of contemporary British folk art, in collaboration with
Alan Kane. In late 2006, he instigated The Bat House Project, an architectural competition open to the public for a bat house on the outskirts of London. The following year, 'Our Hobby is Depeche Mode', a documentary co-directed with Nick Abrahams about
Depeche Mode fans around the world was premiered at the London Film Festival, and followed by festival screenings around the world. In 2009, Deller created Procession, a free and uniquely Mancunian parade through the centre of
Manchester along
Deansgate, a co-commission by
Manchester International Festival and
Cornerhouse.
Procession worked with diverse groups of people drawn from the 10 boroughs of
Greater Manchester and took place on Sunday 5 July at 1400 hrs. Commissioned in 2009 as part of The Three M Project (a group composed of the
New Museum, New York; the
Hammer Museum, LA; and the
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, to exhibit and commission new works of art), Deller created
It Is What It Is. The project was designed to foster public discussion by having guest experts engage museum visitors in a free-form, unscripted dialogue about issues concerning Iraq. In 2015 the exhibition
The Infinitely Variable Ideal of the Popular was presented at
MUAC in
Mexico City, curated by
Ferran Barenblit,
Amanda de la Garza and
Cuauhtémoc Medina. The exhibition traveled to
Fundación Proa in
Buenos Aires and
Alhóndiga in
Bilbao.
Sacrilege, a 1:1
bouncy replica of
Stonehenge created for the 2012 Olympic Games, was toured around the UK and eventually to
Móstoles, Community of Madrid, in 2015.
Charlotte Higgins, of
The Guardian, noted that a megalithic bouncy by artist
Jim Ricks had toured Ireland a few years previously, and wrote: "Why, after several millennia of human creativity, have two inflatable megalithic monuments come along at once?" Despite claims of plagiarism, the two works were shown together in
Belfast in the summer of 2012. On 29 June 2017, his event "What Is The City But The People?" opened the
Manchester International Festival. In 2019 the
Jewish Museum London commissioned Deller to create a short film of antisemitic footage showing contemporary media, politicians, and propagandists making antisemitic statements for its special exhibit
Jews, Money, Myth.
Douglas Murray called the film's use of clips of U.S. President
Donald Trump criticizing 'elites' for draining power from America "an unfair overclaim." Deller produced the documentary
Everybody in The Place: An Incomplete History of Britain 1984–1992 which covered acid house and rave culture, and political turmoil in Britain in the 1980s and early-1990s, first shown by
BBC Four on 2 August 2019. Later the same year, Deller was forced to admit that his design for the memorial to the
Peterloo Massacre, intended to provide a podium for speakers and a monument to equality campaigners, had completely failed to make any provision for wheelchair users, despite corporate artwork prominently featuring wheelchair users and even though access had been raised during the consultation process. Protests by disabled groups led to a last minute redesign and Deller describing himself as "chastened". In June 2024, Deller brought Acid Brass to the streets of
Melbourne, as part of the 2024
RISING: festival, with local brass bands including Merri-bek City Band, Glenferrie Brass, Victorian State Youth Brass Band, Dandenong Band, and Western Brass. ==Other roles==