Robin Deacon Home

LATEST NEWS

SHERMANIA: Link to review of Stuart Sherman performance at the Whitstable Biennale: http://sites.a-n.co.uk/interface/reviews/single/446290

MORE SHERMANIA: For those of you who missed it, here is a link to the blog I recently wrote whilst in New York working on my Stuart Sherman documentary film: click here

PROBABLE BREACH OF COPYRIGHT: A handful of short video works and extracts from videos used in my performance works have now been uploaded onto youtube. More to follow: http://www.youtube.com/user/robindeacon

AND FOR THE LAST TIME (I'M NOT TELLING YOU AGAIN): For those of you who never saw this performance, here are some images of Colin Powell being performed at CCCB in Barcelona in 2006: http://www.cccb.org/en/album?idg=25029

DOCUMENTING LIVE: Extracts from Dispatches, Colin Powell and other works along with interview material can be found in this new publication: http://www.thisisliveart.co.uk/projects/RRR/Doc_Live_Pub.html

NOT ANGRY. REASONABLE.

Robin Deacon is an artist, writer and filmmaker based in the UK. Working since the early 1990’s, much of his work encompasses live performance with a series of performed lectures that have explored journalistic and documentary approaches to arts practice. His work is characterised by a humorous and often satirical approach to the subject matter. His performances and videos have been presented in the UK and internationally in venues such as The Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (1996), The Young Vic Theatre, London (2000), Centre for Contemporary Culture, Barcelona (2006) and Tanzquartier Wein, Vienna (2007). Recently, he has become known for his works in political biography, with a series of performances on the lives of former US Secretary of State Colin Powell (2004 – 08) and German Chancellor Angela Merkel (2005). These works have a strong multimedia element and are often rewritten in response to prevailing news events regarding their subject. The use of recorded interviews (some recorded covertly) is a key element of these and later performances. Current projects include a documentary film on the life of late US American performance artist Stuart Sherman, currently in the early stages of production. His most recent performance piece Prototypes (2006 – 08) stylistically references the output of documentary films produced by the British Transport Commission.

Stuart Sherman 2007

TODAYS SPECIALS

WHAT IS A PERFORMANCE ARTIST?

"Going up the escalator at Tottenham Court Road tube station recently, I saw an advertisement for some sort of new fangled digital camera. Below the picture of this consumer durable was the caption 'Performance Artist'. Looking at the caption, I wondered as to whether this was some bizarre allusion to the clichés of self laceration, nudity and profligate use of taxpayers money that are often associated with the phrase 'Performance Artist'. Perhaps the ad-men were even canny enough to have spotted the niche market amongst performance artists for tools of documentation such as the one pictured here." Read more...

TODAYS SPONSOR

"Believe it or not, when I was growing up, I was never racially abused by white children. Actually, that's not strictly true. I was called a Paki once, but being a case a mistaken identity, I didn't consider this to be a racist comment. But at school, it was amongst the black children that I was deeply unpopular. It seemed my education, my accent, my dress sense, my lack of any black friends, my lack of interest in the crude misogyny of rap music, its vulgar vernacular, my lack of any black friends…whatsoever...for some reason, all this was construed as being some kind of betrayal of my so called roots. Now reactions to this manifested themselves in several ways..." (from Colin Powell) Read more...

COVERT FILMING

Piers Morgan in the BBC pilot show First Edition (as yet uncommissioned). This footage was filmed through a small hole in a shoulder bag for the aborted Live residency. Read more...

"In fact, the most interesting presentation I saw, a video/stage performance called Whatever Happened to Colin Powell? by artist Robin Deacon, started out with the performer committing an act on stage so revolting that I won't even describe it here..."

Some clarification is perhaps required in response to this quotation from Andy Oram's review (ONLamp.com, 2006) of Colin Powell at CCCB in Barcelona. As Harry said in Frank Zappa's Thing Fish, "Just hold your horses...it probably wasn't REAL PISS...only theater piss..." But the question of what is legitimate to put on a website remains. There is (personally speaking) an element of embarrassment relating to much of my early output. So, in the spirit of glasnost click here for examples of performances that seem to contradict the rather more cerebral elements (including the on stage urination) of my current work.

Whatever Happened to Colin Powell? (2006)

"Not even by the remotest stretch of the imagination could you call this good. . .

...that is not to say that Robin Deacon's show isn't interesting: well interesting theoretically, if not always interesting in its theatrical execution. In fact, it tries to be rather too clever for its own good, turning his story of the search for the truth into a meditation on the treachery of truth and storytelling, and the way it is possible to find what you want embedded in any narrative; whether it is an announcement of the second coming, or a coded message in a school photograph that spells out the racial insult 'coons'". (Lyn Gardner on Harry & Me, The Guardian, 2004). For this and other reviews, click here...

Harry and Me 2004

GERMANY NEEDS A MERKEL

A residency at Berlin's Sophiensaele during the summer of 2005 culminated in Dispatches, an 'outsiders' response to the German general election. The gentleman below had no idea who Angela Merkel was, but claimed to have drunk a Coca Cola with Jesus in a bar in Eindhoven...

ROBIN: You don't know who Angela Merkel is?

PREACHER: No. (pause) I know what a Merkel is!

ROBIN: What's a Merkel?

PREACHER: The things that Jesus did...