Jeremy Deller - The Spoils of War

In 2008 Jeremy Deller proposed to place the wreckage of a car bomb from Iraq on the 4th plinth of Trafalger Square. It was to be called  'The Spoils of War' . In a well publicized vote, with maquettes shown at The National Gallery it was resoundingly rejected in favour of Anthony Gormleys' Living Sculptures and that ship in a bottle.
If Dellers proposal seemed redundant, the accomplished reality of it does something no other work of art has done, it tells us something we didn'tknow about Iraq.
The Imperial War Museum, supporter of war art since the early 20th century, has rightly recognsed that Dellers car is the true art of this war. Despite the public rejection, he got his hands on a vehicle destroyed by a murderous truck bomb in Bhaghdad in 2007 and toured it around America. Entitled Baghdad, 5 march 2007, it has become an installation at the Imperial War Museum, right there among the tanks and missiles in he imposing central hall where hew ast centurys lethal weapons are gathered.
What immediately strikes you is the information this car brings, the terible momen of reality. It is a piece of evidence, here is something solid, actual, to replace the strange abstraction of nightmare news stories from remote places. The object is horribly disturbing, its reddened , inside out, flattened metal corpse makes you think unavoidably of human bodies. Here is the effect of pressure and heat on metl, it communicate, with unforced truth the scale of violence unleashed by the invasion of Iraq. It is not rhetotic but reportage. Anyone is entitled to interpret what it means- the opinion of Blair would be as valid asyours or mine. It is a historical document, dragged from hell for us to contemplate i te calm of a museum.
Art does not have to be sterile protest. It cvan be a way ofshowing history, it can report on reality. The greatest war art, from Velazquez showing a burning town in the background of his painting The Surrender of Breda to Dellers raw chunk of modern art, tells it like it is. The beholder can supply the rage.