Art Is Magic: a children's book for adults by

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It’s quite aprovocative thing to do, showing ablown-up car from [what was] effectively acivil war that Americans were involved in. It was really ajourney into the unknown, which is stressful, but exciting. It was aconstant sort of psychological state, weighing up situations with people and just trying to treat everyone the same. Because, he replies, he put all three of the touring party in danger; they could have been shot. The Iraqi had already been in enough life-threatening situations, he didn’t need any more. Fortunately nothing happened, even in the southern states. The point of the tour was to initiate conversations, and it did; people learned a lot, especially from the Iraqi, who had been denied any formal education under Saddam Hussein’s regime and was self-taught to a high level

He’s not coy about the commercial aspect either – if a book is easy to read people are more likely to buy it. They have, he says, printed a lot of copies; they need to sell them somehow. The venue for the event was a deconsecrated church with very understanding hosts. The Murdochs burned for 12 hours. By the end, Lachlan’s face had fallen off. Rupert’s stayed on, but now bowed slightly. With conversations between the artist and an eclectic mix of cultural figures and collaborators, from fashion provocateur Sportsbanger to classicist Mary Bear, the book offers an unpredictable and exhilarating tour of Deller’s life and works. In 1984 the National Union of Mineworkers went on strike. The dispute lasted for over a year and was the most bitterly fought since the general strike of 1926, marking a turning point in the struggle between the government and the trade union movement.

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In Art is Magic, Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller brings together for the first time key works from his career alongside the art, pop music, film, politics and history that have inspired him. I’m glad you’re not an historian’ says Higgins, ‘because you make history so much more interesting.’ Jeremy Deller at EIBF: (c) Robin Mair Jeremy Deller’s new book, which he describes as “a sort of retrospective”, is called Art Is Magic. It reflects his belief in the alchemical power of art to transform the everyday – “if only for a moment, making the mundane profound”. He did, however, consider several other alternative titles for the book, including “That’s Not Art”, “Call That Art?” and “You Can’t Do That” , all of which are things people have said to him about his work. His strategy was to approach people with opposing views to his “in a friendly way, so as to hopefully get into their mind a little bit”. Does he, in retrospect, think he succeeded? “To a degree, yes. I wanted to see why they were like that, what had happened to make them so aggressively bound to this cause. With some people, I achieved that. But, most of the time, rational discussion wasn’t happening in that square. Once you started a debate, people would join in and start screaming and shouting. It was very heightened. Within five minutes, you’d be accused of being a paedophile and that was it.”

Many of these participants were former miners (and a few former policemen) who were reliving events from 1984 that they themselves took part in. The rest were members of Battle re-enactment societies from all over the country.

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When things have gone wrong, it’s tended to be in the art gallery rather than the public domain. In 2000, he and Alan Kane started building up a collection of British folk art – everything from trade-union banners to parade costumes, to a mechanical elephant, to a model of the Coronation Street set. It was exhibited at the Barbican in London, and the critical reaction was horrendous. “I’ve never had such vitriol. It’s horrible what people said about the work and the people who made it. And me, of course. One critic said: ‘I can’t believe I’ve been asked to review this show. It’s literally rubbish.’”