EXETER, UNITED KINGDOM.-Spacex Gallery presents Folk Archive: Contemporary Popular Art from the UK and Ireland: Jeremy Deller and Alan Kane, on view through December 3, 2005. Folk Archive is a vibrant collection of contemporary folk art put together by artists Alan Kane and 2004 Turner Prize winner Jeremy Deller. Over the last five years Deller and Kane’s ongoing research has explored both traditional and contemporary forms of popular creative expression.

From body ornament to flower arranging, knitting to custom cars, Deller and Kane have documented this fantastic array of visual art through photography, film and objects, updating what is traditionally thought of as folk art. It includes incredible objects, films, painting, performance, costume, decoration, political opinion, humour, poetry and more from our own, often overlooked, doorstep. This exhibition shows how widespread contemporary folk art is and the central role it plays in the nature of a society and its art.

Folk Archive celebrates energetic and engaging creativity from a vast range of activities occurring throughout the UK including tar barrel rolling at Ottery St Mary. It features other material from the South West and a series of special events accompany the show.

The exhibition is accompanied by a full-colour publication by Alan Kane and Jeremy Deller, with an essay by Jeremy Millar, edited by Bruce Haines and published by Book Works. Price £14.50, available from SPACEX bookshop.

“The stuff throbs with unmistakably current creative energy. It’s naughty, chaotic, disrespectful and, at times, clinically insane.” The Evening Standard

Folk Archive: Contemporary Popular Art from the UK is organized by Bruce Haines.