Born in London in 1966, Jeremy Deller studied Art History at the Courtauld Institute and at Sussex University, where he did an MA. After meeting Andy Warhol in 1986 he 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 secretly used the family home for an exhibition titled Open Bedroom. Four years later he produced the musical performance Acid Brass with the Williams-Fairey Band, and began making art in collaboration with other people.
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. Since winning the Turner Prize in 2004, he has made a number of documentaries on subjects ranging from exotic wrestler Adrian Street to die-hard international fans of the band Depeche Mode. He has continued making works in collaboration with people, organising (among other projects) urban parades and a cross-country journey across America in which Deller, along with an Iraqi citizen and an U.S. war veteran, travelled with a bomb-destroyed car from Baghdad. (Hayward Gallery, London).
In 2012 the Hayward Gallery, London mounted the first comprehensive survey of his career in an exhibition titled 'Joy In People' and in 2013 Deller was chosen to represent Britain in the 55th International Art Exhibiton - Venice Biennale.
Deller has exhibited widely around the world and selected monographic exhibitions include: Unconvention (1999, Centre for Visual Arts, Cardiff), After the Goldrush (2002, Wattis Institute, San Francisco), Folk Archive with Alan Kane (2004, Palais de Tokyo, Paris and Barbican Art Gallery, London), Jeremy Deller (2005, Kunstverein, Munich), From One Revolution to Another (2008, Palais de Tokyo, Paris), It Is What It Is: Conversations About Iraq (2009, New Museum, NY, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, and Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago), Processions (2009, Cornerhouse, Manchester) and Joy in People at the Hayward Gallery which toured in the US; showing at the Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania and the Contemporary Art Museum St Louis.